But this was not to be. The French built their forts with a keen eye for the strongest points in the wilderness, and the priests planted the cross even beyond the forts. But all around and between the forts and the missions, the traders from our colonies, which afterwards became our states, stole into the country claimed for the king of France. At that time, there was peace between the king of France and the king of England in Europe, and they pretended that there was peace between their nations in America. They were very civil to each other through their ministers and ambassadors, over there, but their governors and captains here never ceased to fight and trick for the ownership of the West. From their forts, built to curb the English settlers, the French set the savages on to harass the frontier of our colonies, which their war parties wasted with theft and fire and murder. Our colonies made a poor defense, because they were suspicious of one another. New England was suspicious of New York, New York of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania of Virginia, and the mother country was suspicious of them all. She was willing that the French should hold Canada, and keep the colonies from joining together in a revolt against her, when she could easily have taken that province and freed them from the inroads of the Canadian Indians. The colonies would not unite against the common enemy, for fear one would have more advantage than another from their union; but their traders went out singly, through the West, and trading companies began to be formed in Pennsylvania and Virginia. While Céloron was in Ohio claiming the whole land for the king of France, the king of England was granting a great part of the same to a company of Virginians, with the right to settle it and fortify it The Virginia Company sent its agents to visit the Miamis at Pickawillany a year later, and bound them to the English by gifts of brandy, tobacco, beads, gay cloths, and powder.