more nearly or remotely operated to produce these troubles that have involved so many parts of the world in one common distraction.
The war into which all parties and interests seem now to be so perfectly blended, arose from causes which originally had not the least connection: the uncertain limits of the English and French territories in America; and the mutual claims of the houses of Austria and Brandenbourg on the duchy of Silesia. It is no wonder that the two former powers, seizing on a country in which they considered the right of the natural inhabitants as nothing, should find it a very difficult matter to settle their own. For a long time neither of these powers were sufficiently acquainted with the geography of America, to enable them to ascertain the limits of their several pretensions with any tolerable exactness; nor, indeed, were these matters deemed of sufficient moment to call for a very laborious discussion. At the treaty of Utrecht, whilst so many more important interests, or what then seemed more important, were discussed, the limits of Nova Scotia, then called Acadia, were expressed only in general terms, and left to be put on a more certain footing by subsequent negotiations. These negotiations, pursued with no vigour and drawn out into an excessive length, seemed only to increase the former confusion. After the accession of the present royal family, a French connection, perhaps necessary from the circumstances of the time, and afterwards a certain negligence of all affairs but those of our domestic polity, suffered this important point to vanish almost wholly out of our consideration. During this interval, our colonies on the continent of North America, extended themselves on every side. Whilst agriculture and the maritime commerce flourished on their coasts, the Indian trade drew several of our wandering dealers far into the inland country, and beyond the great mountains. Here they found themselves in a delightful climate, in a soil abundantly fruitful, and watered with many fair and navigable rivers. These advantages, joined to those of the Indian trade, appeared to compensate for its remoteness from the sea. It was judged that as the first settlers on the coast, we had a good right to the inland country; and, if so, to the navigation of the Missisippi, which opened another door to the ocean. With these views, a company of merchants and planters obtained a charter for a considerable tract of land near the river Ohio, on the western side of the Allegeney mountains, but within the province of Virginia; and the adventurers began to settle pursuant to the terms of their patent.
Now began to shoot forth the seeds of another dispute, which had long lain unobserved, but which proved altogether as thorny and intricate as that concerning the limits of Acadia. The French, pretending to have first discovered the mouths of the Missisippi, claimed the whole adjacent country, towards New Mexico on the East, quite to the Apalachian or Allegeney mountains on the West. They drove off the new settlers, and built a strong fort, called du Quesne, on the forks of the river Monongahela; a situation which commanded an entrance into all the country on the Ohio and Missisippi.
The reader will observe, that I do not pretend to decide concerning the right of either nation
