France had long been ambitious of extending the domain of her colonial empire in America. Her aim was to secure for herself the Mississippi and Ohio valleys. Securing these meant many things to France. It meant the connection of her Mexican colonies with Canada, but it meant much more than this; it meant serious annoyance to England, serious limitation to English commerce. It would make the Alleghany mountains the western limits of the English colonies, hamper the English trade with {286} the Indians, and expose to French attack the English on the north, south, and west. In this year 1754, therefore, she deliberately drove the English out of West Pennsylvania, and set up her staff there by building Fort Duquesne to command the Ohio Valley. At that time the chief British commander in America was General Braddock, a joyous, rollicking soldier of the old-fashioned type, rather popular in London as a good companion and good fellow, who loved his glass with a more than merely convivial enthusiasm. But he was not the sort of man who was fitted to fight the French just then and there. In the open field and under ordinary conditions he might have done well enough, but the war with France in the American colonies was not pursued under ordinary conditions. It was fought on the lines of Indian warfare, with murderous Indian allies, against whom the jolly general of the London tables and the St. James's clubs was wholly unfitted to cope. Though he had been warned by Sir P. K. Halkett, who knew the danger, Braddock actually insisted upon advancing with astonishing recklessness against Fort Duquesne as if he were marching at the head of an invincible force to the easiest possible success. The result of his heedlessness is one of the grimmest spots in English colonial history. [Sidenote: 1759--James Wolfe]