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 Rh open just to your view, or rather to bring you nearer the verge of. You will no doubt ruminate with some little satisfaction on the vast importance of that prodigious river Mississippi, which is said to take its rise on the south side of hills which empty the springs on their northern side into Hudson's Bay, which rolls its waters due south, through a great variety of latitudes, between those mountains and the Mexican Gulf, where it intermingles with the sea, and, in its course, waters a fat and fertile soil, which, from those various latitudes, with proper culture, is capable of bearing almost any of the productions of any climate or country. Of this the French are well aware, as I collect from their insinuations to the various European powers, in order to weaken the interest of Great Britain among them, that the sole possession of North America which they apprehend would be the consequence of our keeping the Ohio and the Lakes without partner or rival, would put it in the power of England not only to grasp at, but seize universal monarchy in Europe, in process of time. And though I may be mistaken, yet I verily believe as much. However, I think the Monsieurs in this ship have been somewhat abandoned by their usual sagacity, since the powers of Europe, upon an impartial comparison of the past conduct of the two contending nations for some centuries back, may possibly form a conclusion but little favorable to them—a conclusion that should the English get such an opportunity, there is only a probability that they might; but should the French get such an opportunity, there is an infallible certainty that they would make use of it; and also that in the former case liberty, both civil and religious, but, in the latter, tyranny of both kinds would be more widely diffused and extensively propagated.