The main object of the French in the West, during the first half of the eighteenth century, was to shut the English settlers in behind the Alleghanies by means of a series of forts. In spite of the strong opposition of the Five Nations,[271] the French erected one of the earliest of these permanent blockhouses at the mouth of the Niagara River in 1720. The English Colonists saw the danger, but the Legislature of New York was so mean in matters of finance that it refused any pecuniary assistance in creating a similar erection at Oswego in 1727. Governor William Burnet had therefore to find the requisite funds out of his own pocket; and although the fort proved of vital importance to New York, he was never fully repaid. In May 1727, Burnet wrote to the Board of Trade and Plantations, "I have this spring sent up workmen to build a stone house of strength at a place called Oswego, at the mouth of the Onondaga River, where our principal trade with the far Nations is carried on. I have obtained the consent of the Six Nations to build it."[272] The establishment of this fort was a great blow to the French, who encouraged the Indians to drive out the English, but only received the reply, "Chassez-les toi-même."[273] As a counterpoise they built Fort Rouillé at Toronto, but Oswego remained as a bastion against French aggression and as a lucrative trading station with the Indians until captured by Montcalm.[274] Even earlier than the foundation of Oswego the French had tried to establish themselves, in 1726, opposite Crown Point, where Lake Champlain contracts to the width of a river; but for the moment they were deterred by the strong opposition of Massachusetts. New Hampshire also claimed this territory, and while, with their usual jealousy, the two colonies "were quarrelling for the bone, the French ran away with it."[275] French aggression continued, and in 1731 they seized Crown Point itself, at the instigation of the celebrated Chevalier Saint Luc de la Corne, and named it Fort St Frederic. The point was claimed by the colony of New York, but here again the settlers were too much engrossed in their chronic dispute with New Jersey to take any effective measures to prevent the loss. It was utterly futile for the New Yorkers and New Englanders to protest that the fort was a menace to British territory, for they had neither the will nor the common-sense to place petty domestic jealousies on one side and unite in driving back the French. The English found, by the year 1750, that owing to their supineness, France had succeeded in building forts at Niagara, Detroit, Michillimackinac, La Baye, Maumee, on the Wabash, St Joseph and Fort Chartres. These may have been loose and uncertain links, but they had great possibilities, and they at least connected Canada and Louisiana, and gave some appearance of the possibility of a French North America.