The French advanced post of Fort Frederic, called Crown Point by the
English, barred the narrows of the lake, which thence spread northward
to the portals of Canada guarded by Fort St. Jean. Southwestward, some
fourteen hundred miles as a bird flies, and twice as far by the
practicable routes of travel, was Louisiana, the second of the two heads
of New France; while between lay the realms of solitude where the
Mississippi rolled its sullen tide, and the Ohio wound its belt of
silver through the verdant woodlands.
To whom belonged this world of prairies and forests? France claimed it
by right of discovery and occupation. It was her explorers who, after De
Soto, first set foot on it. The question of right, it is true, mattered
little; for, right or wrong, neither claimant would yield her
pretensions so long as she had strength to uphold them; yet one point is
worth a moment's notice. The French had established an excellent system
in the distribution of their American lands. Whoever received a grant
from the Crown was required to improve it, and this within reasonable
time. If he did not, the land ceased to be his, and was given to another
more able or industrious. An international extension of her own
principle would have destroyed the pretensions of France to all the
countries of the West. She had called them hers for three fourths of a
century, and they were still a howling waste, yielding nothing to
civilization but beaver-skins, with here and there a fort, trading-post,
or mission, and three or four puny hamlets by the Mississippi and the
Detroit.
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