[5] “At the age of fifteen, Washington received the appointment of midshipman, in the British navy, but surrendered it, at the earnest desire of his mother.”--_National Portrait Gallery_, vol. i. p. 3. [6] “Lord Fairfax was a man of cultivated mind, educated at Oxford, the associate of the wits in London, the author of one or two papers in the “Spectator,” and a _habitué_ of the polite circles of the metropolis. A disappointment in love is said to have cast a shadow over his after life, and to have led him to pass his time in voluntary exile on his Virginia estates.”--Everett’s _Life of Washington_, p. 41. [7] Sebastian Cabot, in the year 1498, sailed from Bristol, England, with two ships, in the month of May. He first made land on the coast of Labrador. He was seeking a passage to India. Cruising along the shores of Nova Scotia, and the whole length of the coast of Maine, he rounded Cape Cod, and continued his voyage to the latitude of Cape Hatteras. Thence he entered upon his homeward voyage.--Galvano’s _Discoveries of the World_, p. 88. London, 1601. [8] “The French insisted on the right of discovery and occupancy. Father Marquette, La Salle, and others, they said, had descended the Mississippi, and settlements had been made south of Lake Michigan and on the Illinois river, years before any Englishman had set his foot westward of the great mountains; and European treaties had repeatedly recognized the title of France to all her actual possessions in America. So far the ground was tenable.”--Sparks’ _Life of Washington_, p. 20. But he immediately adds, in apparent contradiction to these statements: “It is clear that neither of the contending parties had any just claims to the land about which they were beginning to kindle the flames of war. They were both intruders upon the soil of the native occupants.” This is hardly fair to either party. Neither France nor England claimed the territory, to the exclusion of the rights of the original inhabitants. Their only claim extended to the right of purchasing the territory from the Indians, of trading with them, and of establishing colonies. And this right all the maritime nations of Europe recognized. [9] Galvano’s “Discoveries of the World,” p. 88, London; Biddle’s “Memoir of Sebastian Cabot,” p. 221, London. [10] “A Description of the English Province of Carolina,” by Daniel Coxe, Esq., p. 113. [11] M’Culloch’s Geographical Dictionary. [12] “New France,” vol. iii. p. 380; “Annals of the West,” p. 57. [13] “Plain Facts,” p. 55; Pownal’s “Memoir on Service in North America.”