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sources. In its recesses are found coal, salt, sulphur, lead, zinc, copper, iron, and other metals, in sufficient abundance for its own consumption and even for exportation! when a sufficient amount of enterprise shall have been concentrated to work them with effect. Besides these agricultural and mineral resources, that are always essential to the comfort of a local population, it possesses natural channels of navigation, by which the sur plus of its products may be exported abroad. A chain of lakes, the largest on the globe, stretches from the shores of New York, and waters its coast for thousands of miles. The Mississippi, which is much the longest, although not the broadest river upon the earth, taking its rise in the remote north, opens a highway to the ocean through the Gulf of Mexico, for the distance of about three thousand miles, and will be conjoined with the whole line of the lakes when the projected ship canal to connect the Fox River of Green Bay with the Wisconsin, and that at the Sault de Sainte Marie shall have been constructed; thus affording a continuous line of coast navigation from New Orleans to Buffalo, or to the remotest shores of Lake Superior. Besides this line of coast navigation, the territory is variegated with inland lakes and streams, (the largest of which is the Ohio,) that connect its remotest parts, and furnish communications with the principal waters, channels for steamships, flatboats, rafts, or hydraulic power for the propulsion of machinery; and, it is not the least remarkable feature of this territory, that within fifty years, under American auspices, it has increased from a comparative solitude to a population of nearly three millions, according to the lowest estimate.

The progress of the territory may be considered as marked by three distinct epochs. The first commences with the explorations of Robert de la Salle, and reaches down to the year 1760, the whole period of the French domination; the second begins with that year, when the English obtained possession of the country, and extends to the year 1796, when the western posts were surrendered to the United States; and the third reaches from that time to the present, when the full action of American enterprise has been experienced upon the soil.

We have said that the French history of the northwest commences with the first explorations of Robert de la Salle, who "led the way" to its first permanent colonization by civilized man. La Salle may be justly regarded as The Columbus of Western Discovery. Constructing a vessel upon the shore of Lake Erie, when there was stretched around him a chain of un. known seas and forests, inhabited by Indians whose temper towards the French had not then been clearly ascertained, with here and there, perhaps, a jesuit missionary, who had erected his cross in the woods, we find him on the 7th of August, 1679, first ploughing the billows of that lake in his frail bark, The Griffin, for the image of that animal was carved upon her bow. This was the first vessel that had ever adventured upon the northwestern waters. Louis Hennepin, a Flemish Recollect, was his spiritual adviser; and a small body of Frenchmen constituted his crew. They sounded as they went, because no ship had ever crossed these lakes before. Having succeeded in navigating this lake, they arrived on the tenth of that month near the cluster of islands that is grouped at the mouth of the De. troit river, where they anchored. "These islands," says Hennepin, who was the journalist of the expedition, "make the finest prospect in the world. The strait (of Detroit) is finer than Niagara, being one league broad, excepting that part which forms the lake that we have called Saint

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Clair. The country between the two lakes (Erie and Huron) is very well situated, and the soil very fertile. The banks of the strait (Detroit) are vast meadows, and the prospect is terminated with some hills covered with vineyards, trees bearing good fruit, groves and forests, so well disposed, that one would think nature alone could not have made without the help of art so charming a prospect. That country is stocked with stags, wild goats, and bears, which are good for food, and not fierce as in other countries. Some think they are better than our pork. Turkey cocks and swans are there very common, and our men brought several other beasts and birds whose names are unknown to us, but they are extraordinary relishing. The forests are chiefly made up of walnut, chesnut, plum, and pear trees, loaded with their own fruit and vines. There is also abundance of timber for building, so that those who shall be so happy as to inhabit this noble country, cannot but remember with gratitude them who have led the way. We have been induced to make a liberal quotation from Hennepin for the purpose of showing the spirit of the first expedition to the northwest, and the impressions entertained by these explorers of the magnitude of the enterprise. History has scarcely done justice to the merits of the heroic La Salle, although a monument to his memory has been erected at Washing. ton, in the rotunda of the Capitol, by the side of those of William Penn and John Smith. The French history of this region, embracing a large mass of facts, is deposited in the numerous journals which were from time to time prepared by the jesuit missionaries and early French travellers through this portion of the west, while it was held and claimed by France, and in the scattered colonial records and traditions which have strayed down to our own day. Besides a considerable bulk of anonymous matter comprised in these journals, we have the more valuable accounts of Father Joseph Marquette, one of the most disinterested and benevolent of these Catholic missionaries, and the first pioneer to the banks of the Mississippi from the Canadian territory, the more labored works of the Baron La Hontan, Charlevoix, Joutel, Hennepin, Tonti, and many others, whose statements, to us of the present time, are of the greatest value. Some of these journalists were gentlemen of rank, the most of them men of educa. tion, who traversed this region either as soldiers of the French government or in the service of the church. A few of these works were very much labored; and, in the form of their publication, received all those appliances which at that time were furnished by the press of Paris, and all that encouragement which was granted by royal patronage and popular interest in France respecting its newly acquired American territory. The work of the famous Baron La Hontan was issued in a pretty expensive style, and illustrated by numerous engravings, depicting savage customs and historical incidents, awkward and inaccurate enough, but still showing the impres sions which the fresh, and, to them, extraordinary scenes of western life and scenery, were calculated to produce. The works of Charlevoix especially, both his Journal, (which consisted of a series of letters addressed to the Duchesse de Lesdiguiere,) and his "History of New France," have always received a great degree of the public favor. The last named work was published under the special sanction of the French crown, and in that luxurious form which best befitted the voluptuous age of Louis XIV. and the court of Versailles. We doubt, indeed, whether any historical work,

* See Hennepin's account of the first expedition of La Salle. VOL. III.NO. I.

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ancient or modern, regarding this country, has ever been published in a more costly manner than this same History of New France, which contains likewise his Journal. It is comprised in three quarto volumes, whose vignette, in its emblematic device, emblazons the glory of "La Grande Nation," and is interspersed with numerous maps and expensive engravings, which show the geography and the vegetable productions of the country.* Most of the works to which we have alluded may be found in the library of our New York Historical Society.

These travellers were not, nor could they be expected to be, in all cases accurate, from their rapid passage through the western territory; but, in their accounts of their own experience, we derive much valuable information of its actual condition during the time when they wrote. Glimpses of wild beasts which they had never before seen, vegetable productions whose names they did not know, fragments of facts collected from the accounts of the Indians, always exaggerated and seldom authentic, passed in rapid succession before their minds, while they journeyed onward in bewildered amazement through rivers, lakes, forests, and Indian camps; and their impressions, thus colored and distorted, found their way into their books. But, taken as a whole, their accounts are as accurate as could be expected, considering the circumstances under which they wrote; and they furnish a valuable mine whence the future historian of this region may dig many a solid stone and brilliant gem, to lay the foundations and adorn the columns of his edifice, as soon as the growing population, wealth, and taste of the region shall warrant the construction of his work. If, for example, the zealous Marquette depicts the "wingless swans" as floating upon the Mississippi-when Hennepin describes the "wild goats" upon the shores of Lake Eriewhen the Baron La Hontan discourses upon the "Long river," and Charlevoix alludes to the "citrons" as growing upon the banks of the Detroit, we are disposed to attribute their inaccuracy less to intentional misrepresentation than to natural and obvious mistake. Accurate observation and minute care are required, to establish with perfect correctness the facts connected with any country, and he who should look to early records for historical matter, will find much chaff to be winnowed from the genuine and golden wheat.

In examining the early French works connected with the west, we are impressed with the bold contrast which they bear to the colonial accounts of New England at the same period. Although the greater part of those volumes are ecclesiastical, proceeding as they did from the ministers of the church, they yet glow with a romantic enthusiasm, the peculiar characteristic of the French people, and for which we look in vain among the sober yet zealous colonial writers of the puritans. And it must be granted that the fresh and luxuriant scenes of this western scenery and association were calculated to call forth a picturesque eloquence. Some of these French journalists were fresh from the paving stones of Paris; and, transported into the new wilderness, a broad expanse of lakes and forests, whose resources and boundaries were then unknown, they advanced with a zeal and

* Those of our readers who wish to extend their researches into the early history of the northwest, we would refer to La Hontan's Voyages, Hennepin, the Journal of Charlevoix, Charlevoix's Nouvelle France, the Journal of Marquette, Joutel, and Tonti; and also to the Lettres Edifiantes, which contain much curious and valuable matter. + How easy was it for Hennepin to mistake a herd of young deer, bounding through the woods, for a flock of wild goats!

ardor which would naturally arise in the minds of men who deemed them. selves discoverers Here surfaces of water were spread out, which to them appeared like oceans. There was descried a glassy stream winding through green woods, or murmuring by banks of flowers. Here was stretched out a tract of forest, the growth of centuries, almost impervious to the eye from the rank undergrowth of its vegetation, and expanding into what appeared interminable distance. There a prairie covered with the long and coarse grass of these natural meadows, lay in the lap of silence, the ranging ground of droves of elks and buffaloes, and the cradle of the rattlesnake or the spotted fawn. Here tracts of landscape swelling into bold undulations, like the long swells of the sea after a storm, disclosed portions of wilderness which seemed like the cultivated parks of the old world, widened into unmeasured extent, through the branches of which gleamed a silver lake that bore upon its bosom the swan and flocks of wild ducks of various plumage. Here an Indian wigwam showed its naked tenants, and there the canoe of a savage darted across the blue expanse of the waters. It was natural that the French travellers should select the more pleasing features of the country in their accounts to the parent government abroad.

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The savages, new to them and uncouth in their habits and dress, furnished a still wider field for moral speculation than the features of the natural scenery. "The Lake Erie," says La Hontan, who was for some time the commandant of the fort of Michilimackinac, and who travelled through the lakes about the year 1688, "is justly dignified with the illustrious name of Conti, for assuredly it is the finest upon earth. You may judge of the goodness of the climate from the latitude of the countries that surround it. Its circumference extends to two hundred and thirty leagues, but it affords every where a charming prospect, and its banks are decked with oak trees, elms, chesnut trees, walnut trees, apple trees, plum trees, and vines which bear their fine clusters up to the tops of the trees, upon a sort of ground that lies as smooth as one's hand. Such ornaments as these are sufficient to give rise to the most agreeable idea of a landscape in the world." Charlevoix, who travelled through the same track on his way to Detroit in 1720, about thirty-three years afterwards, follows in the same strain. "Were we all to sail," says he, "as I then did, with a serene sky, in a most charming climate, and on water as clear as that of the purest fountain-were we sure of finding every where secure and agreeable places to pass the night in, where we might enjoy the pleasure of hunting at a small expense, breathe at our ease the purest air, and enjoy the prospect of the finest country in the universe, we might possibly be tempted to travel to the end of our days. I recalled to mind the memory of those ancient patriarchs who had no fixed place of abode, who lived in tents, who were in a manner the masters of all the countries they passed through, and who enjoyed in peace and tranquillity all their productions, without the plague inevitable in the possession of a real and fixed estate. How many oaks represented to me that of Mamre ! How many fountains put me in mind of that of Jacob! Each day a new situation chosen at pleasure, a neat and commodious house, built and furnished with all necessaries in less than a quarter of an hour, and floored with a pavement of flowers, continually springing up on a carpet of the most beautiful green, on all sides simple and natural, beauties unadulterated and inimitable by any art!" Such is

* See La Hontan's Voyages.

† See Charlevoix's Journal.

an example of some of the most highly wrought accounts which from time to time were forwarded to the French government by its early explorers through the west.

We come now to a consideration of the condition of the territory while it was occupied by France. It is well known that the French, who first gained its occupation and held possession until the year 1760, established themselves around the chain of fortifications first projected and partially carried out by La Salle, along the great lakes and the banks of the Missis sippi. The design of this chain of fortifications was three fold; to provide military defences against the Indians, to extend the operations of the fur trade, to hem in the English colonies by a line of forts extending from Quebec to the delta of the Mississippi, and to furnish safe depots or factories for the collection of the peltries collected at these posts, which formed the prominent mercantile enterprise of France in this country during the whole period of the French domination; and from their establishment commences the most interesting portion of the history of the territory. To the question, what was the condition of the northwest territory when it was claimed and occupied by France, we can furnish a ready answer. It was a vast ranging ground for the numerous Indian tribes, who roamed over it in all the listless indolence of their savage independence; of the jesuit missionaries, who, under the garb of their religious orders, strove to gain the influence of the red men in behalf of their government as well as their church, by their conversion to the Catholic faith; the theatre of the most important military operations of the French soldiers at the west; and the grand mart where the furs, which were deemed the most valuable products of this region, were collected for shipment to France, under a commercial system which was originally projected by the powerful mind of the Cardinal de Richelieu.

The condition of a country, although often in some measure modified by the nature of the climate and the soil, is more generally founded upon the character of the people and the constitution of its laws. This is clearly exhibited in the case of the northwest, for while the domain was rich in all the natural advantages that could be furnished by the soil, it was entirely barren of all those moral and intellectual fruits springing from bold and energetic character, directed by a free, enlightened, and wholesome system of jurisprudence. The character of the early French Canadian settlers. was of that cast the least adapted to advance the solid growth of any nation. Originally imported to Canada from the peasantry of the French provinces, or taken from the transient and unsettled population of the frontier towns of that empire, a class never distinguished for morals or intelligence, they were introduced into this part of the west by the members of the old French trading companies, in order to carry out the interests of their royal and chartered monopolies, in a traffic that was necessarily confined to the line of the lakes. We find them scattered around the frontier posts of the lake waters, at Detroit, Michilimackinac, the Sault de Sainte Marie, Green Bay, and other interior posts, extending to Lake Superior and the borders of the Mississippi. They were a class of men, mild, affable, contented so long as they could obtain a cup of "hominee" or a haunch of venison, willing to embark in their canoes and sweep the whole extent of the lake waters, to traverse the uttermost depths of the woods, to wear the dress of demi-savages, the capote, the blanket coat, the crimson sash, the leggins. of deer skin, the embroidered moccasins, and the scalping knife, to lodge

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