University of Virginia Library

ENGLAND AND FRANCE—CLAIMS OF THE TWO NATIONS TO THE OHIO
VALLEY.

As has been seen, France had taken possession of that part of the continent
lying far away towards the Arctic Circle, and had planted settlements
along the St. Lawrence; her discoverers, Jolliette and Marquette,
had explored the country from the extreme north-east to the Gulf of
Mexico, and upon these discoveries she based her claim to all that part
of the continent drained by the Mississippi river and its tributaries. And
when the English crossed the rocky barrier and began to penetrate into
the Ohio Valley, she viewed these encroachments upon her soil with a
jealous eye, and at once determined to oppose them at all hazards.
France rested her claim to the Ohio and Kanawha valleys upon the
recognized law of nations that "The discovery of the mouth of the river
should entitle the nation making the discovery to the country drained by
that river and its tributaries." The claim thus set up by France and
resisted by Great Britain is exactly the same as that upon which the
United States subsequently based their claims to the Territory of Oregon.
England claimed that aside from her title by purchase, she held, under
the discovery of John and Sebastian Cabot (1498), the entire region
lying between the 38th and 64th parallels of north latitude, a zone extending
across the continent from ocean to ocean. She also set up
another claim—priority of discovery, a claim utterly absurd and entirely
untenable.

France, convinced of the justness of her claims, after addressing an
appeal to the nations of the world, determined not to yield before the
threatening attitude of her powerful rival, and immediately set about
adopting the most effective measures for maintaining her claim to the
great Valley of the West, and accordingly began the erection of a cordon
of forts extending from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, the
most important of which were those at Fontinac, Niagara, Detroit, Green
Bay, Vincennes, Kaskaskia, Natchez and Biloxi. In the year 1720 she
erected Fort Chatres, in what is now Illinois. It was constructed by an
engineer of the Vauben school, and was one of the strongest fortifications
ever erected on the continent of North America.

In 1748 the British parliament passed laws authorizing the formation
of many new settlements and issued many land grants, in which the
interests of British commerce were consulted, rather than the articles of

the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. Prominent among these movements was
the organization of the Ohio Company, the settlement of the Upper Ohio,
and several others of an aggressive character, the most important of
which was the sending of a regiment of British soldiers into the Ohio
Valley, where they took post at the mouth of the Monongahela.

When the French authorities heard of this movement on the part of
the English, the home government authorized the governor-general of
Canada to remonstrate against the aggressive invasion of French territory,
and a summons was accordingly addressed to the English commander.
The following is an extract:

(See De Hass, page 61.)

In the year 1749, as a preliminary step in taking formal possession of
the Ohio and its tributaries, the Marquis de la Galisoniere, governor-general
of Canada, determined to place along the "Oyo," or La Belle
Riviere, a number of leaden plates suitably inscribed, asserting the claims
of France to the lands on both sides of the river, even to the source of
its tributaries. The command of the expedition whose duty it was to
deposit those plates was given to Captain Bienville de Celeron, and consisted
of eight subaltern officers, six cadets, an armorer, twenty soldiers,
one hundred and eighty Canadians, and fifty-five Indians—two hundred
and seventy in all. The expedition left Montreal on the 15th of June,
1749, and on the 29th reached the La Belle Riviere at the junction of
the Monongahela and Alleghany rivers, where the first plate was buried.
The expedition then descended the river, depositing plates at the mouths
of the principal tributaries, and on the 18th of August reached the
mouth of the Chinodashichetha (Great Kanawha), and on the point between
the two rivers the fifth plate was buried. It was found in 1846
by a son of Mr. John Beale, of Mason county, West Virginia, afterwards
of Kentucky, and removed from the spot in which it had remained
for a period of ninety-seven years. The following is a translation of the
inscription on the plate. We have compared it with that made recently

by Professor O. S. Marshall, from the original copy-plate now preserved
in the archives of the Departement de la Marine, in Paris, and find them
to agree in every particular.