The area surrounding Blue Mountain in Pennsylvania continued to suffer random attacks in 1758 from Fort Duquesne, the southernmost French fort. In random raids, nine more people were killed, three captured, and three went missing. The fort’s influence seriously waned during the year. The British naval blockade near the mouth of the St. Lawrence River stopped most of the flow of supplies and trade goods coming into Canada. Any goods that did trickle in were inflated in price and sold mostly around Quebec. None reached as far south as Fort Duquesne. Most of the Indians refused to fight without the payment of trade goods and returned to their villages.
In October 1758, the British command, along with representatives from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, invited the chiefs of thirteen tribes to a meeting. There the Treaty of Easton was signed. The Indians were given superior English trade goods in exchange for remaining neutral in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and along a portion of the Ohio River for the remainder of the war. This brought peace to the region.
William Pitt in England was given charge of the war effort in North America. His directives changed the course of the war:
July 1758 – The British regulars and Colonial militias arrived by sea and laid siege to the French Fort Louisbourg at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, defeating the French along with a number of their warships.
August 1758 – Lieutenant Colonel John Bradstreet defeated the French at Fort Frontenac at the east end of Lake Ontario with 150 British regulars and 2,850 colonials.
October 1758 – The Treaty of Easton (as mentioned above).
November 1758 – Only a small garrison of French was left at Fort Duquesne when they learned an English and Colonial force of six thousand was approaching. They abandoned and burned the fort.
July 1759 – The English and colonials captured Fort Niagara (La Belle Famille).
September 1759 – General James Wolf defeated General Louis Joseph Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham near Quebec City.
1762 – In the Treaty of Fontiubleau, France ceded Louisiana to Spain (an ally of England in the Seven Years’ War, in which the French & Indian War was included, along with conflicts over colonies in India and Africa).
1763 – The Treaty of Paris ended the Seven Years’ War. France traded all her possessions in North America for the lucrative sugar cane island of Guadeloupe.