FullReads

When the peace of Utrecht was made, which those, who clamoured among us most loudly against it, found it their interest to keep, the French applied themselves, with the utmost industry, to the extension of their trade, which we were so far from hindering, that, for many years, our ministry thought their friendship of such value, as to be cheaply purchased by whatever concession.

Instead, therefore, of opposing, as we had hitherto professed to do, the boundless ambition of the house of Bourbon, we became, on a sudden, solicitous for its exaltation, and studious of its interest. We assisted the schemes of France and Spain with our fleets, and endeavoured to make these our friends by servility, whom nothing but power will keep quiet, and who must always be our enemies, while they are endeavouring to grow greater, and we determine to remain free.

That nothing might be omitted, which could testify our willingness to continue, on any terms, the good friends of France, we were content to assist, not only their conquests, but their traffick; and, though we did not openly repeal the prohibitory laws, we yet tamely suffered commerce to be carried on between the two nations, and wool was daily imported, to enable them to make cloth, which they carried to our markets, and sold cheaper than we.

During all this time they were extending and strengthening their settlements in America, contriving new modes of traffick, and framing new alliances with the Indian nations. They began now to find these northern regions, barren and desolate as they are, sufficiently valuable to desire, at least, a nominal possession, that might furnish a pretence for the exclusion of others; they, therefore, extended their claim to tracts of land, which they could never hope to occupy, took care to give their dominions an unlimited magnitude, have given, in their maps, the name of Louisiana to a country, of which part is claimed by the Spaniards, and part by the English, without any regard to ancient boundaries, or prior discovery.

When the return of Columbus from his great voyage had filled all Europe with wonder and curiosity, Henry the seventh sent Sebastian Cabot to try what could be found for the benefit of England: he declined the track of Columbus, and, steering to the westward, fell upon the island, which, from that time, was called by the English Newfoundland. Our princes seem to have considered themselves as entitled, by their right of prior seizure, to the northern parts of America, as the Spaniards were allowed, by universal consent, their claim to the southern region for the same reason; and we, accordingly, made our principal settlements within the limits of our own discoveries, and, by degrees, planted the eastern coast, from Newfoundland to Georgia.

As we had, according to the European principles, which allow nothing to the natives of these regions, our choice of situation in this extensive country, we naturally fixed our habitations along the coast, for the sake of traffick and correspondence and all the conveniencies of navigable rivers. And when one port or river was occupied, the next colony, instead of fixing themselves in the inland parts behind the former, went on southward, till they pleased themselves with another maritime situation. For this reason our colonies have more length than depth; their extent, from east to west, or from the sea to the interior country, bears no proportion to their reach along the coast, from north to south.

It was, however, understood, by a kind of tacit compact among the commercial powers, that possession of the coast included a right to the inland; and, therefore, the charters granted to the several colonies, limit their districts only from north to south, leaving their possessions from east to west unlimited and discretional, supposing that, as the colony increases, they may take lands as they shall want them, the possession of the coasts, excluding other navigators, and the unhappy Indians having no right of nature or of nations.