The French & Indian War

"Fathers, both you and the English are white, we live in a Country between; therefore the Land belongs to neither one nor to other; But the Great Being Above allow'd it to be a Place of Residence for us; so Fathers, I desire you to withdraw, as I have done our Brothers the English; for I will keep you at Arms length. I lay this down as a Trial for both, to see which will have the greatest Regard to it, and that Side we will stand by, and make equal Sharers with us.
— Seneca chief Tanaghrisson to the commander of a French fort in the Ohio Valley, as reported to and recorded by George Washington, 25 November 1753¹⁴

"Tu n'es pas encore mort, mon père" (Thou art not yet dead, My Father)
— Seneca chief Tanaghrisson to Ensign Joseph Jumonville, moments before killing the French commander captured by George Washington near the Great Meadows, 28 May 1754¹⁵

"Savages may indeed be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia; but upon the king's regular and disciplined troops, Sir, it is impossible they should make an impression."
— British General Edward Braddock to Benjamin Franklin, 1755, after rejecting proposals from the Ohio Indians that the British and Indians ally and just before departing for the Ohio Valley where he was defeated and killed by French and Indian forces at the Battle of the Wilderness¹⁶

"The paths to glory lead but to the grave"
— From Thomas Gray's "Elegy in a Country Courtyard," recited, according to legend, by James Wolfe the night before he died in battle on the Plains of Abraham¹⁷

"No prince has ever begun his reign by so glorious a war and so generous a peace."
— Lord Egremont to King George III of Great Britain, crowned on 25 October 1760, just two weeks after the fall of Montreal ending the French and Indian War¹⁸

"It is truly a miserable thing that we no sooner leave fighting our neighbors, the French, but we must fall to quarreling among ourselves."
— Reverend Samuel Johnson of Connecticut, 1773¹⁹