or were able to do; the very thing they engaged in this war to
accomplish, and we to prevent.

The Missisippi indeed is rapid for twelve hundred miles, as far as to
the Missouri, which makes it difficult to go up the river by water.
For that reason the French have been used to quit the Missisippi at
the river St. Francis, from which they have a nigher way to the Forks
of the Missisippi by land. But however difficult it may be to ascend
the river, it is, notwithstanding often done; and its rapidity
facilitates a descent upon it, and a ready conveyance for those gross
commodities, which {xiii} are the chief staple of North America, from
the most remote places of the continent above mentioned: and as for
lighter European goods, they are more easily carried by land, as our
Indian traders do, over great part of the continent, on their horses,
of which this country abounds with great plenty.

The worst part of the navigation, as well as of the country, is
reckoned to be at the mouth of the river; which, however, our author
tells us, is from seventeen to eighteen feet deep, and will admit
ships of five hundred tons, the largest generally used in the
plantation trade. And even this navigation might be easily mended, not
only by clearing the river of a narrow bar in the passes, which our
author, Charlevoix, and others, think might be easily done; but
likewise by means of a bay described by Mr. Coxe, from the actual
survey of his people, lying to the westward of the south pass of the
river; which, he says, has from twenty-five to six fathom water in it,
close to the shore, and not above a mile from the Missisippi, above
all the shoals and difficult passes in it, and where the river has one
hundred feet of water. By cutting through that one mile then, it would
appear that a port might be made there for ships of any burden; the