Increasing population increased these outrages. There was no law in the wilderness. These British desperadoes regarded no more the restraints of religion than did the bears and the wolves. They behaved like demons, and they roused the demoniac spirit in the savages. Crime was followed by crime, cruelty by cruelty, blood by blood. But for man’s inhumanity to man beautiful Virginia, with her brilliant skies, her salubrious air, her fertile fields, her crystal streams, her majestic mountains, her sublime forests, her placid lakes, might have been almost like the Garden of Eden. If the heart of man had been imbued with the religion of Jesus, the whole realm might have been adorned with homes, in some degree, at least, like those found in the mansions of the blest. But the conduct of depraved men converted the whole region into a valley of Hinnom, abounding in smouldering ruins, gory corpses, and groans of despair.
Rapidly, on both sides, the spirit of vengeance spread. The savages, with their fiend-like natures roused, perpetrated deeds of cruelty which demons could not have surpassed. They made no discrimination. The English were to be exterminated. When the frontiersman was roused, at midnight, by the yell of the savages, and being left for dead upon the ground, with his scalp torn from his head, after some hours of stupor revived to see his cabin in ashes, the mangled corpses of his children strewn around, with their skulls cleft by the tomahawk, and not finding the remains of wife or daughter, was sure that they were carried into Indian captivity, perhaps to be tortured to death, for the amusement of howling savages—as thus bleeding, exhausted, and in agony he crept along to some garrison house, he was in no mood to listen to the dictates of humanity. Thus the terrible conflict which arose, assumed the aspect of a war between maddened fiends.
George Washington had attained the age of nineteen years. Youthful as he was, he was regarded as one of the prominent men of the State of Virginia. Every day brought reports of tragedies enacted in the solitudes of the wilderness, whose horrors will only be fully known in that dread day of judgment when all secrets will be revealed. It became necessary to call the whole military force of Virginia into requisition, to protect the frontiers from the invasion of savage bands, who emerged from all points like wolves from the forest.
The State was divided into districts. Over each a military commander was appointed, with the title of Major. George Washington was one of these majors. The responsibilities of these officers were very great, for they were necessarily invested with almost dictatorial powers. The savages would come rushing at midnight from the wilderness, upon some lonely cabin or feeble settlement. An awful scene of shrieks and flame and death would ensue, and the band would disappear beyond the reach of any avenging arm. In such a war the tactics of European armies could be of but little avail.
The State of Virginia was then, as now, bounded on the west by the Ohio river, which the French called La Belle Rivière. England claimed nearly the whole North American coast, as hers by the right of discovery, her ships having first cruised along its shores. The breadth of the continent was unknown. Consequently the English assumed that the continent was theirs, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, whatever its breadth might be.[7]
But the ships of France were the first which entered the river St. Lawrence; and her voyagers, ascending the magnificent stream, discovered that series of majestic lakes, whose fertile shores presented inviting homes for countless millions. Her enterprising explorers, in the birch canoe, traversed the solitary windings of the Ohio and the Mississippi. Hence France claimed the whole of that immense valley, almost a world in itself, whose unknown grandeur no mind then had begun to appreciate.
It was then a law of nations, recognized by all the European powers, that the discovery of a coast entitled the nation by whom the discovery was made, to the possession of that territory, to the exclusion of the right of any other European power. It was also an acknowledged principle of national law, that the discovery and exploration of a river entitled the nation by whom this exploration was made, to the whole valley, of whatever magnitude, which that river and its tributaries might drain.[8]
These conflicting claims led to the march of armies, the devastations of fleets, terrific battles—blood, misery, and death. France, that she might retain a firm hold of the territory which she claimed, began to rear a cordon of forts, at commanding points, from the great lakes, down the Ohio and the Mississippi, until she reached the Spanish claims in the south. Though France had discovered the Mississippi, in its upper waters, the Spanish chevalier, De Soto, had previously launched his boats near its entrance into the Gulf, and his tragic life was closed by burial beneath its waves.
An awful struggle, which caused as great woes perhaps as this sorrowful world has ever endured, was now approaching, for the possession of this continent. France and England were the two most powerful kingdoms, if perhaps we except Spain, then upon the globe. The intelligent reader will be interested in a more minute account of the nature of those claims, which English historians, generally, have somewhat ignored, but upon which results of such momentous importance to humanity were suspended.
In the year 1497, John Cabot, with a fleet of four, some say five ships, sailed from Bristol, England, and discovered the coast of Labrador. But little is known respecting this voyage, for the journal was lost. He returned to England, greatly elated, supposing that he had discovered the empire of China.