a series of forts from Canada to Louisiana. Although conflict developed with the French over control of fisheries and the fur trade, British settlers in North America primarily were interested in settlement and in expanding westward. According to McNaught, by 1754 there were only 70,000 Frenchmen in North America but nearly two million English settlers.
Davis said that "for a time, the French maintained the upper hand in North America." Reilly said this was partly because the French and their indigenous allies "had the immeasurably advantage of defending a country they knew on interior lines." British attempts to penetrate the interior by and large failed due to their failure to commit adequate resources, uncertain political leadership in London and tactical errors committed by local military commanders less adept than their foes in wilderness warfare. Attempts by the British to capture the capital, Quebec, failed in 1690, 1711 and 1746. French and Indian forces decisively defeated British General Edward Braddock's attempt to capture Fort Duquesne in western Pennsylvania in 1755.
Montcalm, who arrived to take command in the spring of 1756, "won several . . . notable victories" [his capture of Fort Oswego and Fort William Henry in 1757 and his successful defense of Fort Ticonderoga in 1758, all in the New York colony,] "putting the French in control of the lake route into Canada."
The British colonists in North America petitioned Parliament in the mid-1750s to mount a stronger military effort. Their pleas were answered, and the tide of battle began to swing in favor of the British, after William Pitt the Elder assumed responsibility for foreign affairs in London in June 1757. According to Reilly, in Pitt's view "Britain . . . was a maritime and mercantile power; her strength lay not in her armies . . . but in the fleet and her wealth from trade." He, accordingly, gave first priority to the defeat of France overseas and to...