all which space there is but one fall or rapide in the Ohio, and that
navigable both up and down, at least in canoes. This fall is three
hundred miles from the Missisippi, and one thousand three hundred from
the sea, with five fathom of water up to {xii} it. The other large
branches of the Ohio, the river of the Cherokees, and the Wabache,
afford a like navigation, from lake Erie in the north to the Cherokees
in the south, and from thence to the bay of Mexico, by the Missisippi:
not to mention the great river Missouri, which runs to the north-west
parts of New Mexico, much farther than we have any good accounts of
that continent. From this it appears, that the Missouri affords the
most extensive navigation of any river we know; so that it may justly
be compared to an inland sea, which spreads over nine tenths of all
the continent of North America; all which the French pretended to lay
claim to, for no other reason but because they were possessed of a
paltry settlement at the mouth of this river.

If those things are considered, the importance of the navigation of
the Missisippi, and of a port at the mouth of it, will abundantly
appear. Whatever that navigation is, good or bad, it is the only one
for all the interior parts of North America, which are as large as a
great part of Europe; no part of which can be of any service to
Britain, without the navigation of the Missisippi, and settlements
upon it. It is not without reason then, that we say, whoever are
possessed of this river, and of the vast tracts of fertile lands upon
it, must in time command that continent, and the trade of it, as well
as all the natives in it, by the supplies which this navigation will
enable them to furnish those people. By those means, if the French, or
any others, are left in possession of the Missisippi, while we neglect
it, they must command all that continent beyond the Apalachean
mountains, and disturb our settlements much more than ever they did,