History of Louisisana | Page 8

twenty-five thousand people in South Carolina; when the French has not less than eighty or ninety thousand in Canada, besides ten or twelve thousand on the Missisippi, to oppose to them. The low and drowned lands, indeed, about the mouth of the Missisippi must no doubt be more or less unhealthful; but they are far from being so very pernicious as many represent them. The waters there are fresh, which we know, by manifold experience in America, are much less prejudicial to health than the offensive fetid marshes, that are to be found every where else on the salt waters. Accordingly we are credibly informed, that some of the inhabitants of New Orleans say, they never enjoyed better health even in France; and for that reason they invite their countrymen, in their letters to them, we are told, to come and partake of the salutary benefits of that delightful country. The clearing, draining, and cultivating of those low lands, must make a very great change upon them, from the accounts we have had of them in their rude and uncultivated state.
III. The Upper Louisiana we call that part of the continent, which lies to the northward of the mountains above mentioned in latitude 35��. This country is in many places hilly and mountainous for which reason we cannot expect it to be so fertile as the plains below it. But those hills on the west side of the Missisippi are generally suspected to contain mines, as well as the mountains of New Mexico, of which they are a continuation. But the fertile plains of Louisiana are perhaps more valuable than all the mines of Mexico; which there would be no doubt of, if they were duly cultivated. They will breed and maintain ten times as many people, and supply them with {x} many more necessaries, and articles of trade and navigation, than the richest mines of Peru.
The most important place in this country, and perhaps in all North America, is at the Forks of the Missisippi, where the Ohio falls into that river; which, like another ocean, is the general receptacle of all the rivers that water the interior parts of that vast continent. Here those large and navigable rivers, the Ohio, river of the Cherokees, Wabache, Illinois, Missouri, and Missisippi, besides many others, which spread over that whole continent, from the Apalachean mountains to the mountains of New Mexico, upwards of one thousand miles, both north, south, east, and west, all meet together at this spot; and that in the best climate, and one of the most fruitful countries of any in all that part of the world, in the latitude 37��, the latitude of the Capes of Virginia, and of Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico. By that means there is a convenient navigation to this place from our present settlements to New Mexico; and from all the inland parts of North America, farther than we are acquainted with it: and all the natives of that continent, those old friends and allies of the French, have by that means a free and ready access to this place; nigh to which the French formed a settlement, to secure their interest on the frontiers of all our southern colonies. In short this place is the centre of that vast continent, and of all the nations in it, and seems to be intended by nature to command them both; for which reason it ought no longer to be neglected by Britain. As soon as we pass the Apalachean mountains, this seems to be the most proper place to settle at; and was pitched upon for that purpose, by those who were the best acquainted with those countries, and the proper places of making settlements in them, of any we know. And if the settlements at this place had been made, as they were proposed, about twenty years ago, they might have prevented, or at least frustrated, the late attempts to wrest that country, and the territories of the Ohio, out of the hands of the English; and they may do the same again.
But many will tell us, that those inland parts of North America will be of no use to Britain, on account of their distance {xi} from the sea, and inconvenience to navigation. That indeed might be said of the parts which lie immediately beyond the mountains, as the country of the Cherokees, and Ohio Indians about Pitsburg, the only countries thereabouts that we can extend our settlements to; which are so inconvenient to navigation, that nothing can be brought from them across the mountains, at least none of those gross commodities, which are the staple of North America; and they are as inconvenient to have any thing carried from them, nigh two thousand miles, down the river Ohio,