Attempt to remove the seat of government.-Assembly refuse to prepare temporary accommodations in Williamsburg Dissolved by proclamation. -Writs issued for a general election-Assembly. Governor recommends to build on the old foundation. This assembly important in talents and character. Bill passes both houses for rebuilding capitol in Williamsburg. General revisal of laws. Governor intimates his intention to leave the colony. Several grants to adventurers beyond the mountains. Robinson president-Dies. Thomas Lee president. Assembly prorogued-Assembly petition that one penny per pound be taken off from the tax on tobacco. Lewis Burwell president. Assembly farther prorogued.-President permits New York company to build a theatre.-Assembly again prorogued Robert Dinwiddie governor. Assembly dissolved. Short review of the war in the northern colonies, and of the state of arts and science in the other provinces.

CHAP.
II.

The pro

ject of

revived af

ter his dismissal.

CHAPTER II.

THE project of Spotswood, rejected during his administration, was adopted after his dismissal, This gentleman had given offence to the ministry by urging with too much boldness the necesSpotswood sity of establishing a chain of forts for the protection of the vast and fruitful champaignes between the Apalachian mountains and the Mississippi. Diasppointed in this expectation he demanded that the people employed in exploring the region beyond the mountains, should receive compensation from the British government. He had undertaken, as he alleged, the expedition by desire of the government, and its success would redound to the safety and honour of the whole empire: Nothing, therefore, he added, could be more just than that its expense should be defrayed by the government of the nation.* But an advocation of colonial rights by a royal governor was an example equally offensive and alarming; and he was replaced by Hugh Drysdale, who arrived in 1723, and whose administration would have been utterly unknown but for his signature to a few acts of assembly.

The remo

OTHER causes have been assigned for the reval of Spots- moval of Spotswood. It has been suggested that his intimate knowledge of the country, and more especially of its true commercial and political in

wood ac

counted for.

• Wynne's British Empire in N. Am. vol. 2. p. 238.

terests had rendered him obnoxious to several CHAP. leading families in Vginia, whose private views were frequently traversed by his projects, and their importunities at length effected his recal.* Ir may not be amiss in this place to speak A more something more fully of this plan, whose accom. particular plishment was afterwards fraught with so many eventful consequences to the world, and which in its operation lighted up a most destructive war in every quarter of the globe.

t

account of his projec

THE Outawas, a powerful nation inhabiting The Outa the banks of the Ohio, almost directly in the was French line of communication between Canada and Louisiana, were thought to be well affected to the English interest, and it was proposed to purchase from them a tract of territory on this river. Lower down, and in the same route, lay the Outagamis, incensed against the French by recen, And the injuries, and prepared to embrace any measures Outagami calculated to gratify their revenge, and recover their former reputation and prosperity. They were in the habit of intercepting the French parties passing from Canada and Louisiana, and their They had ferocious courage had inspired with terror the interrupted the French neighbouring Indians, who considered them even communimore terrible than the warriors of the Five Na- cation be. tions. The French perceived that the destruc tion of this people was essential to the security of their possessions; and the conduct of the Outa gamis having rendered them obnoxious to all the neighbouring tribes, with the exception of the Kickapous and Mascontins, a confederacy took

tween the

St. Lau

rence and the Missis

sippi,

* Wynne's British Empire in America, vol. 2. p. 238.

+ Now called the Twightees

N

CHAP. place of those tribes in conjunction with France to cut them off.

II.

wishes to conciliate them

Is frustrat

ed by the tie

midity of

Britain and the jealousy of France.

THE Outagamis were at this time besieging. Detroit, for the purpose of delivering it into the hands of the English, to whom they were favourably disposed, when they were attacked by a superior body of French and Indians, and after having performed prodigies of valour, were almost exterminated. The nation, however, notwithstanding its losses, could still arm five hundred warriors, and they had lately united themselves with the Sioux, the most numerous nation belonging to Canada, and with the Chickasaws, the most powerful tribe in Louisiana.*

OCCUPYING thus the avenues of communication, the Outawas and Outagamis, though lately Spotswood enemies, might have been both by some address united in a project for repelling the encroachments of France. One part of this plan had actually been attempted by Spotswood:† But it was rendered abortive by the timidity of the British government and the wakeful jealousy of France. He proposed, by a great colonial force assisted by European troops, to attack the western Spanish settlements, and he doubted not by a chain of posts judiciously chosen, and the friendship of those Indians, to cut off all communication and concert between the French dependencies in America, and immediately to gain possession of the provinces of Spain, who was then actually at war with Great Britain ‡ Drysdale was succeeded by Gooch, a brigadier general on the British establishment, who passed acts of assembly for the first time in 1727.

II.

In order to a correct knowledge of this admi- CHAP. nistration, it becomes necessary to speak something of the French and English colonies; and the views and pretensions of those great rivals respecting their territorial rights in North America.

THE English were in possession of the sea coast, Comparathe harbours, the mouths and banks of the rivers; tive view of and some, though a very inconsiderable number, British coFrench and had made a few settlements at more than one hun- lonies. dred miles from the coast. The French were not possessed of any sea coast or harbours on the continent, properly so called; but had confined their plantations to the two great rivers, St. Laurence and Mississippi ;* the one running south and the other nearly north, their sources being at no great distance from each other, and forming a line almost parallel to the sea coast inhabited by the English.

HERE was a territory sufficiently ample for all the purposes of wealth and even ambition, if ambition ever could be satisfied. But the rooted spirit of rivalship and hostility existing between these powers since the earliest times, sought out pretexts for quarrel even in those remote regions; and war with all its horrors must be transferred from the desolated and drenched plains of the old world to stain the verdant bosom of the new.

claims.

THE French claims were founded on a sup- Foundation posed discovery by La Salle of Louisiana, in. of their recluding the Mississippi and its branches, and on spective the royal charter. The English charters extended the British settlements from the Atlantic ocean to the South Sea; a grant so general as to include not only the territory which was becoming the

Wynne's British America.