108 HISTORY OF OHIO. 



troit, Mackinaw, the Straits of St. Mary, Chicago, Pittsburgh, 

 St. Louis, &c. &c. were as well selected for military posts, as 

 could possibly be done, even at this day, when this country is 

 well settled and of course, well known. 



The first vessel ever launched by Europeans, on the upper 

 lakes, was the Griffin, built by La Salle, in 1680, and was lost on 

 its return voyage from Chicago to Niagara river. After its de- 

 parture it was never heard of, nor is the fate of any of its crew 

 known. Not a white man dwelt on the borders of that lake, nor 

 in the Western States. Sixty years had elapsed since the 

 landing of the pilgrims on Plymouth rock. The western states 

 were one vast wilderness, inhabited only by savages and wild 

 animals. The contrast is consoling to all the friends of a hu- 

 man happiness. 



The French intended to keep possession of the Canadas and 

 of the whole valley of the Mississippi, which they claimed ei- 

 ther by actual settlement, or by discovery; as well as by their 

 treaties with the Indians, and confirmed to them, as they said, 

 by the treaties of Aix La Chapelle &c. with the European 

 governments. That they intended to erect a great and pow- 

 erful State in the new world, is evident from the vast expenses 

 they were at, in building forts at all the proper points of com- 

 munication; from the great extent of their church establish- 

 ment; their large endowments for colleges and other schools 

 of learning. Their extreme anxiety, to keep possession of 

 this vast territory is seen in every thing they did respecting 

 it. Professor Silliman in his " Tour between Hartford and 

 Quebec," justly remarks, that " he knows nothing that has 

 excited his surprise more in Canada, than the number, extent 

 and variety of the French institutions, many of them, intrin- 

 sically of the highest importance, and all of them, according to 

 their views, possessing that character." " They are the more 

 extraordinary," he remarks, " when we consider that the most 

 of them are more than a century old, and at the time of their 

 foundation, the colony was feeble and almost engaged in war. 

 It would seem from these facts, as if the French contemplated 

 the establishment of a per^^anent, ^d eventually, of a great 



