Communication by water
was, except during a period of profound peace, almost
impracticable; for, although of late years the lakes of
Canada have been covered with vessels of war, many of
them, as we have already remarked, of vast magnitude,
and been the theatres of conflicts that would not have
disgraced the salt waters of ocean itself, at the period
to which our story refers the flag of England was seen
to wave only on the solitary mast of some ill-armed and
ill-manned gunboat, employed rather for the purpose of
conveying despatches from fort to fort, than with any
serious view to acts either of aggression or defence.
In proportion as the colonies of America, now the United
States, pushed their course of civilisation westward, in
the same degree did the numerous tribes of Indians, who
had hitherto dwelt more seaward, retire upon those of
their own countrymen, who, buried in vast and impenetrable
forests, had seldom yet seen the face of the European
stranger; so that, in the end, all the more central parts
of those stupendous wilds became doubly peopled. Hitherto,
however, that civilisation had not been carried beyond
the state of New York; and all those countries which
have, since the American revolution, been added to the
Union under the names of Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri,
Michigan, &c.
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