CI nosslo Inilians in particular (who are a brave & powerful Ti ')e of the Seneca Nation & live near Niagara) are as your Lc 'dships may see by the Proceedings I now send you, very de irous of (h'iving the French from Niagara & equaly pressing thai; we should undertake it. I have given General Amherst Intelligence hereof & wrote him on this subject, nearly in sui stance what I have now had the honour to mention to your Lc -ships. My Lords

-- b^g yo^"^ Patience whilst I pursue this subject a little further. Th-3 Reduction of Niagara, and if well conducted I think we cai.not fail of success, will be in the light I view it, a point of inestimable advantage to the security & welfare o( this His Majestys Dominions, and if the conquest is rightly improved, will throw such an extensive Indian Trade & Interest, for they are insuperable, into our hands, as will in my humble opinion, overset all those ambitious and Lucrative schemes W^^* the French have projected & in the pursuit of which they were interupted by the present War in this part of the world.

Wkilst the French are in possession of Niagara in vam will our repossession of Oswego & reestablishing an Indian Trade there, enable us to hold the Ballance from them in Indian Interest or Trade. The many nations of Westward Indians, in comparison with whom, the 6 Nations are but a handful, might pass by Niagara in order to come to Oswego, where the French stop them &. their goods, secure them by negotiation & engross their Trade, thib we felt for some years before the war began when very few of iliose Indians came to trade with us to Oswego, and latterly the chief Trade there was rather carried on with the French than Iniians, by which means our Enemies procured assortments & supplies of Goods from us to support their Trade at & from Niagara.