PROPOSED PACIFIC ROAD.                              213
consequences to the public are not to he slighted, as we may be led into a general quarrel through their means. The Indians in the part adjacent to Michilimackinac have been treated with at a very great expense for some time previous.
" Major Rodgers brings a considerable charge against the former for mediating a peace between some tribe3 of the Sioux and some of the Chippeweighs, which, had it been attended with success, would only have been interesting to a very few French, and others, that had goods in that part of the Indian country, but the contrary has happened, and they are now more violent, and war against one another."
Though a wilderness of over one thousand miles intervened between the Falls of St. Anthony and the white settlements of the English, he was fully impressed with the idea that the state now organized under the name of Minnesota, on account of its beauty and fertility, would attract settlers.
Speaking of the advantages of the country, he says that the future population will be " able to convey their produce to the seaports with great facility, the current of the river from its source to its entrance into the Gulf of Mexico, being extremely favourable for doing this in small craft. This might also in time be facilitated by canals or shorter cuts, and a communication opened by water with New York, by way of the Lakes."
The subject of this sketch was also confident that a route could be discovered by way of the Minnesota river, which " would open a passage for conveying intelligence to China, and  the  English  settlements  in the  East
Indies."
Carver, having returned to England, interested Whit-