n
America were altogether hostile, and their conduct hastening towards a
rupture, which kindled up a bloody war in every division of the globe.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE BRITISH COLONIES IN NORTH AMERICA.

As this war may be termed a native of America, and the principal scenes
of it were acted on that continent, we shall, for the information of the
reader, sketch out the situation of the then British colonies as they
bordered on each other, and extended along the sea coast, from the
gulf of St. Lawrence as far south as the country of Florida. We shall
enumerate the Indian nations that lie scattered about their confines,
and delineate the manner in which the French hemmed them in by a
surprising line of fortifications. Should we comprehend Hudson's Bay,
with the adjacent countries, and the banks of Newfoundland, in this
geographical detail, we might affirm that Great Britain at that time
possessed a territory along the sea-coast, extending seventeen hundred
miles in a direct line, from the sixtieth to the thirty-first degree of
northern latitude; but as these two countries were not concerned in this
dispute, we shall advance from the northward to the southern side of the
gulf of St. Lawrence; and beginning with Acadia or Nova Scotia, describe
our settlements as they lie in a southerly direction, as far as the gulf
of Florida. This great tract of country, stretching fifteen degrees
of latitude, is washed on the east by the Atlantic Ocean; the southern
boundary is Spanish Florida; but to the westward the limits are
uncertain, some affirming that the jurisdiction of the colonies
penetrates through the whole continent, as far as the South Sea; while
others, with more moderation, think they are naturally bounded by the
river Illinois that runs into the Mississippi, and in a manner connects
that river with the chain of lakes known by the names of Michigan,
Huron, Erie, and Ontario, the three first communicating with each other,
and the last discharging itself into the river St. Lawrence, which,
running by Montreal and Quebec, issues into the bay of the same
denomination, forming the northern boundary of Nova Scotia. The French,
who had no legal claim to any lands on the south side of this river,
nevertheless, with an insolence of ambition peculiar to themselves, not
only extended their forts from the source of the St. Lawrence, through
an immense tract of that country, as far as the Mississippi, which
disembogues itself into