----- [1] This is misleading. The author has told us, in the preceding chapter, of several attempts of English coast colonists to make transmontane settlements, quite apart from thought of ousting the French. Englishmen had no sooner landed in America than they attempted to cross the Western mountain barrier. Ralph Lane made the attempt in 1586, Christopher Newport and John Smith in 1606, and Newport himself in 1607. John Lederer, a German surgeon exploring for Governor Berkeley, of Virginia, reached the top of Blue Ridge in 1609, but did not descend the western slope. Two years later, Abraham Wood discovered the Great Kanawha. It is possible that the French Jesuit Le Moyne was on the Alleghany River as early as 1656. La Salle was probably at the Falls of the Ohio (Louisville) in 1669. But it was not until about 1700 that French and English fur-traders met in open rivalry on the Ohio. It was with no thought of the French that Governor Spottswood, of Virginia, passed over the Blue Ridge in 1714. The situation in short, was this: The English colonists early wanted the over-mountain country watered by the Ohio, but were too weak at first to hold for agricultural settlement lands so far from home, in the face of a savage foe. The French wanted the valley solely for the fur trade, but Iroquois opposition long kept them from entering; when at last they were able to do so, the English colonists had also grown strong enough to move in, and then ensued the long and bloody struggle in which New France fell.--R. G. T. [2] In the journal (drawn up for the inspection of Gov. Dinwiddie) of the events of his mission to the commander of the French forces on the Ohio; this was the first of those splendid acts of a public nature, performed by Gen. Washington.