But the ships of France were the first which entered the river St. Lawrence; and her voyagers, ascending the magnificent stream, discovered that series of majestic lakes, whose fertile shores presented inviting homes for countless millions. Her enterprising explorers, in the birch canoe, traversed the solitary windings of the Ohio and the Mississippi. Hence France claimed the whole of that immense valley, almost a world in itself, whose unknown grandeur no mind then had begun to appreciate. It was then a law of nations, recognized by all the European powers, that the discovery of a coast entitled the nation by whom the discovery was made, to the possession of that territory, to the exclusion of the right of any other European power. It was also an acknowledged principle of national law, that the discovery and exploration of a river entitled the nation by whom this exploration was made, to the whole valley, of whatever magnitude, which that river and its tributaries might drain.[8] These conflicting claims led to the march of armies, the devastations of fleets, terrific battles--blood, misery, and death. France, that she might retain a firm hold of the territory which she claimed, began to rear a cordon of forts, at commanding points, from the great lakes, down the Ohio and the Mississippi, until she reached the Spanish claims in the south. Though France had discovered the Mississippi, in its upper waters, the Spanish chevalier, De Soto, had previously launched his boats near its entrance into the Gulf, and his tragic life was closed by burial beneath its waves. An awful struggle, which caused as great woes perhaps as this sorrowful world has ever endured, was now approaching, for the possession of this continent. France and England were the two most powerful kingdoms, if perhaps we except Spain, then upon the globe. The intelligent reader will be interested in a more minute account of the nature of those claims, which English historians, generally, have somewhat ignored, but upon which results of such momentous importance to humanity were suspended. In the year 1497, John Cabot, with a fleet of four, some say five ships, sailed from Bristol, England, and discovered the coast of Labrador. But little is known respecting this voyage, for the journal was lost. He returned to England, greatly elated, supposing that he had discovered the empire of China.