Of the years which followed, there is little that is interesting in the history of the Illinois; but its condition in 1750 may be inferred from a letter written in that year by Father Vivier. Writing "Aux Illinois," six leagues from Fort Chartres, June 8th, 1750, Vivier says: "We have here whites, negroes and Indians, to say nothing of cross-breeds. There are five French villages, and three villages of the natives, within a space of twenty-one leagues, situated between the Mississippi and another river called the Karkadiad (Kaskaskias.) In the five French villages are, perhaps, eleven hundred whites, three hundred blacks, and some sixty red slaves or savages. The three Illinois towns do not contain more than eight hundred souls, all told. Most of the French till the soil; they raise wheat,* cattle, pigs and horses, and live like princes. Three times as much is produced as can be consumed;† and great quantities of grain and flour are sent to New Orleans." In this letter, also, Vivier says that which shows Father Marest's fears of French influence over the Indian neophytes to have been well founded. Of the three Illinois towns, he tells us, one was given up by the missionaries as beyond hope, and in a second, but a poor harvest rewarded their labors; and all was owing to the bad example of the French, and the introduction by them of ardent spirits.‡ Imlay says that in 1746, eight hundred thousand pounds of flour, equal to 4,285 barrels, were exported from Illinois to New Orleans. In 1769, the French at the Illinois made upward of one hundred hogsheads strong wine from the American wild grape.-Report of the Superintendent of the Census, 1851. Brandy and rum entered largely into the commerce of Louisiana, and great quantities of those articles were shipped from New Orleans to the Illinois, for the Indian trade, during the whole period of the French domination. PERIOD II. 1698-1765. The French title to the valley of the Mississippi rested upon the fact of the explorations of Marquette and La Salle, the fact of occupation, and upon their construction of the respective treaties of Ryswick, Utrecht and Aix la Chapelle. The English claims to the same region were based on the fact of a prior occupation of the corresponding coast, on an opposite construction of the same treaties, and on alleged cession of the rights of the Indians. The rights acquired by discovery were conventional, and in equity were good only between European powers, and could not affect the rights of the natives; but the distinction was disregarded by both the French and English governments; and the inquiry of the Indian chief embodies the whole controversy in brief: "Where are the Indian lands, since the French claim all on the north side of the Ohio, and the English all on the south side of it?" The English charters granted to all the original colonies expressly extended their grants westward to the South Sea, and the claims thus set up to the West, though held in abeyance, were never relinquished. The English colonies were fixed agricultural communities. The French colonies were rather trading, military and missionary establishments. And this fact furnishes in part the reason why the French were familiar with the whole valley of the Mississippi before the English passed the Alleghenies. Explorations west of the Alleghenies were, however, made at different times during the period of the French occupation, mainly through individual enterprise, and efforts were made to induce the home government to colonize and occupy the valley of the Mississippi. A volume called "A Description of the English province of Carolana, by the Spaniards called Florida, and by the French called La Louisiane, as also of the great and famous river Meschacebe, or Mississippi, the five vast navigable lakes of fresh water, and the parts adjacent, together with an account of the commodities of the growth and production of the said province," was published by Daniel Coxe, at London, in 1722. Charles I., in 1630, granted to Sir Robert Heath, all that part of America lying between thirty-one and thirty-six degrees north latitude, from sea to sea, out of the limits of which the province of Carolina was afterward taken. This large grant was conveyed in 1638 to the Earl of Arundel, and afterward came into the possession of Dr. Daniel Coxe. In the prosecution of this claim, it appears* that Colonel Wood, of Virginia, from 1654 to 1664, explored several branches of the Ohio and "Meschacebe," the authority for which is a journal of Mr. Needham, who was employed by Col. Wood-that there was in existence before 1676, the journal of some one who had explored the Mississippi to the Yellow, or Missouri river-that in 1678 several persons went from New England as far as New Mexico, one hundred and fifty leagues beyond the Meschacebe, and on their return rendered an account of the government at Boston. Further, that Coxe himself, and through his agents, had entered the valley from Carolina and Pennsylvania, that in 1698 he had fitted out two vessels under the command of Captain Barr, one of which ascended the Mississippi one hundred miles, and that the English designed to make a settlement of the Huguenot refugees on the "Meschacebe," but that the death of Lord Lonsdale, who was the chief promoter of the scheme, frustrated the project. It is the main object of "The Description of Carolana," which was written by the son of the proprietor, to describe the topography of the Mississippi valley, from the journals and reports of all these explorers; and, though he borrows evidently from the French explorations, yet there is an exactness in his descriptions, that is a strong evidence of the truth of the journals on which it is based. There is even a remarkable sagacity and foresight in some of its allusions and suggestions. The south pass over the Rocky Mountains is marked as a great conveniency; there are tracts of country in the West "that would suit very well with camels;" the great importance of the cotton culture is affirmed; even the gold of California and the Sandwich Islands come under the notice of the writer. Yet, with the exception of the report of the English vessel met by Bienville at the "English turn," the description of which agrees with that of the vessel commanded by Captain Barr, there is no corroboration of any of these statements. The policy of occupying the Mississippi valley was for a time neglected. It was revived by Alexander Spottswood, † who was, *Coxe's Memorial to King William, in 1699. in 1710, made Governor of Virginia. Spottswood was gifted with more than ordinary foresight and breadth of view. The purpose, even then entertained by the French, of enclosing the English colonies within the mountains, did not escape his penetration, and accordingly he proposed a system of measures to counteract their schemes. Through his representation, the Assembly of Virginia was induced to make appropriations to defray the expense of an exploration of the Alleghenies, then popularly believed to be impassable, for the purpose of discovering a passage to the valley beyond. Gov. Spottswood led the expedition in person. A practicable pass was discovered, a route was marked out for future emigrants, and the party returned to Williamsburg. There, as a memorial of the event, Spottswood established the "Transmontane Order, or Knights of the Golden Horse Shoe," conferred the honor of this novel knighthood on each of the companions of his expedition, and, in allusion to the horse shoes they used, which were not employed in the sandy soil of Eastern Virginia, he gave, as the badge of the order, a golden horse shoe, inscribed with the motto, "Sie jurat transcendere montes." With more wisdom, he presented a memorial to the English government, in which, with great force and acuteness, he exposed the French scheme of military occupation, foretold the course they would pursue in the effort to limit the English colonies to the Atlantic coast, and advised the building of a chain of forts across to the Ohio, and the formation of settlements to counteract them. Nothing was done to carry out his suggestions, his recall prevented him from prosecuting his favorite plans, and the subject was lost sight of under the pressure of other affairs. Forty years later, the British colonies had occasion to remember the policy of Governor Spottswood, and to regret that it was so thoughtlessly abandoned. Individuals, however, from time to time passed into the valley, for the purposes of trade or location. There are vague accounts that English traders were known on the Ohio as early, perhaps, as 1730. In 1742, John Howard crossed the mountains from Virginia, descended the Ohio in a skin canoe, and was taken prisoner by the French on the Mississippi. Soon after that time traders undoubtedly began to flock thither from Virginia and Pennsylvania. In 1748, Conrad Weiser,* a German of Herenberg, who * Early History of Pennsylvania, App. 10. had in early life acquired the Mohawk tongue, by a residence among them, was sent on an embassy to the Shawanees, on the Ohio. Mr. Weiser proceeded to Logstown,* a Shawanee village on the north side of the Ohio, seventeen miles below the site of Pittsburgh, where he met the chiefs of the tribe, delivered presents to them, and received assurances of their support against the French. But the principal ground of claim of the British to the country west of the Alleghenies, was by treaties of purchase from the "Five Nations," or Iroquois. This was the only confederacy of Indian tribes that deserved the name of government in this part of North America. They had the rude elements of a confederated republic, and they were the conquerors of most of the other tribes from Lower Canada to the Mississippi, and even beyond. Different from the policy of all the other tribes, they left the conquered nations to manage their own internal affairs as they might choose, but exacted tributes, and especially claimed the right as conquerors to dispose of their country. On this right the Five Nations sold, in treaty with the British authorities, the country on the Ohio, including Western Virginia, and Kentucky, a large part of Illinois, and the country along the northern lakes into Upper Canada. Waiving for the present all questions as to the justice of their claims, it is a fact now fully established, that this confederacy did set up claims to the whole country now embraced in Kentucky and Western Virginia north of the Cherokee claims, and the Northwestern Territory, except a district in Ohio and Indiana, and a small section in Southwestern Illinois, which was claimed and held by the Miami confederacy. In 1684, Lord Howard, Governor of Virginia, held a treaty with the Five Nations, at Albany, when, at the request of Colonel Dungan, Governor of New York, they placed themselves under the protection of the British nation.† They made a deed of sale, by treaty, to the British government of a vast tract of country south and east of the Illinois river, and extending across Lake Huron into Canada. Another formal deed was drawn up, and signed by the chiefs of the national confederacy in 1726, by which their lands were conveyed in trust to England, "to be protected *Weiser's Journal. Early History of Pennsylvania. App. 12. |