Forts Quotes
This quotation is often misunderstood. At the time there were a number of siege machines that were used to batter or breach the walls of towns, forts or castles. However, really good architects (actually military engineers and architects were the same at the time) were able to design countermeasures to thwart the machines by analyzing the principles of the siege machines and creating counter machines, structures and tactics. This point was that the clever architects were necessary and able to save nations. Most of these have got unheralded at the time or in history except for a few like Leonardo Da Vinci who is today known as a great artist and futurist but was mainly known his his own time as a military engineer.
The French were at the time much more aggressive traders and the Iroquois Nation had fixed agrarian communities and were very involved in trading. And the French King controlled the military in North America and had ordered the construction of a series of forts to protect their trading interests from the British. However, military affairs in British Colonial America were left to the colonies, all of whom were very parochial and didn't want to raise taxes for much. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Colonial delegates at the conference, had been urging some kind of a federation of the American colonies–{583422} & {35007}. He had used the Iroquois as a model as the 6 tribes had a unified military among other common governmental aspects. However, no colony wanted to give up any of its sovereignty to others or a Federation. Under the prodding of Franklin and the Iroquois, 7 Colonial Delegations agreed to a plan, mostly devised by Franklin�the Albany Plan�for a centralized governmental structure. The Albany Plan was never implemented but it started the process of unification discussion of the Colonies which would stimulate the Articles of Confederation and the Continental Congress.
The Catawabas fought in the South with the English against the French and Spanish. In this case they asked for “military assistance” which was provided in terms of the fort which was built and provision of powder and ammunition. Later the Catawabas sided with the Americans in the Revolution.
This quotation shows us that even before the birth of Christ, amongst the elite intellectuals of the Roman society, empiricism, experiment and the scientific method were commonly utilized. The Dark Ages and the Domination of the Roman Catholic Church saw this type of thinking disappear, though books such as these survived and with the birth of Islam were preserved and used by the Muslims until the found their way back to Europe in the 16th century.
