History of Louisisana | Page 8

whole continent is open to them,
and they have, besides, this healthy {ix} situation on the lower parts of
that river, at a small distance from the sea.
If those things are duly considered, it will appear, that they who are
possessed of the Missisippi, will in time command that continent; and
that we shall be confined on the sea coasts of our colonies, to that
unhealthful situation, which many would persuade us is so much to be
dreaded on the Missisippi. It is by this means that we have so very few
people in all our southern colonies; and have not been able to get in one
hundred years above 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