History of Louisisana | Page 9

and then by the Missisippi. For that reason those countries, which we look upon to be the most convenient, are the most inconvenient to us of any, although they join upon our present settlements. It is for these reasons, that the first settlements we make beyond the mountains, that is, beyond those we are now possessed of, should be upon the Missisippi, as we have said, convenient to the navigation of that river; and in time those new settlements may come to join to our present plantations; and we may by that means reap the benefit of all those inland parts of North America, by means of the navigation of the Missisippi, which will be secured by this post at the Forks. If that is not done, we cannot see how any of those inland parts of America, and the territories of the Ohio, which were the great objects of the present war, can ever be of any use to Britain, as the inhabitants of all those countries can otherwise have little or no correspondence with it.
IV. This famous river, the Missisippi, is navigable upwards of two thousand miles, to the falls of St. Anthony in latitude 45��, the only fall we know in it, which is 16 degrees of latitude above its mouth; and even above that fall, our author tells us, there is thirty fathom of water in the river, with a proportionate breadth. About one thousand miles from its mouth it receives the river Ohio, which is navigable one thousand miles farther, some say one thousand five hundred, nigh to its source, not far from Lake Ontario in New York; in all which space there is but one fall or rapide in the Ohio, and that navigable both up and down, at least in canoes. This fall is three hundred miles from the Missisippi, and one thousand three hundred from the sea, with five fathom of water up to {xii} it. The other large branches of the Ohio, the river of the Cherokees, and the Wabache, afford a like navigation, from lake Erie in the north to the Cherokees in the south, and from thence to the bay of Mexico, by the Missisippi: not to mention the great river Missouri, which runs to the north-west parts of New Mexico, much farther than we have any good accounts of that continent. From this it appears, that the Missouri affords the most extensive navigation of any river we know; so that it may justly be compared to an inland sea, which spreads over nine tenths of all the continent of North America; all which the French pretended to lay claim to, for no other reason but because they were possessed of a paltry settlement at the mouth of this river.
If those things are considered, the importance of the navigation of the Missisippi, and of a port at the mouth of it, will abundantly appear. Whatever that navigation is, good or bad, it is the only one for all the interior parts of North America, which are as large as a great part of Europe; no part of which can be of any service to Britain, without the navigation of the Missisippi, and settlements upon it. It is not without reason then, that we say, whoever are possessed of this river, and of the vast tracts of fertile lands upon it, must in time command that continent, and the trade of it, as well as all the natives in it, by the supplies which this navigation will enable them to furnish those people. By those means, if the French, or any others, are left in possession of the Missisippi, while we neglect it, they must command all that continent beyond the Apalachean mountains, and disturb our settlements much more than ever they did, or were able to do; the very thing they engaged in this war to accomplish, and we to prevent.
The Missisippi indeed is rapid for twelve hundred miles, as far as to the Missouri, which makes it difficult to go up the river by water. For that reason the French have been used to quit the Missisippi at the river St. Francis, from which they have a nigher way to the Forks of the Missisippi by land. But however difficult it may be to ascend the river, it is, notwithstanding often done; and its rapidity facilitates a descent upon it, and a ready conveyance for those gross commodities, which {xiii} are the chief staple of North America, from the most remote places of the continent above mentioned: and as for lighter European goods, they are more easily carried by land, as our Indian traders do, over great part of the continent, on their horses, of which this country abounds with great plenty.
The worst part of the navigation, as