INCIDENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. OUTLINE HISTORY. AFTER the first daring and successful voyage of Columbus, the attention of the European governments was directed towards exploring the "new world." In the year 1497, John Cabot, a Venetian in the service of Henry VII. of England, first discovered the Island of Newfoundland, and from thence ranged the coast of the United States to Florida. The country was peopled by uncivilized nations, who subsisted chiefly by hunting and fishing. The Europeans who first visited our shores, treated the natives as wild beasts of the forest, which have no property in the forests through which they roam; and therefore planted the standard of their respective masters on the spot where they first landed, and in their names took possession of the country, which they claimed by right of discovery. Previous to any settlement in North America, many titles of this kind were acquired by the English, Dutch, French, and Spanish navigators. Slight as these claims were, they were afterwards the causes of much dispute and contention between the European governments. These contentions arose from the fact of the subjects of different princes laying claim to the same tract of country, because both had discovered the same river or promontory; or because the extent of the claims of each party was undefined. The first permanent English settlements in the United States were at Jamestown in Virginia, in 1607, and at Plymouth in Massachusetts in 1620. While the European settlements were few and scattered in this vast and uncultivated country, and the trade of it confined to the bartering of a few trinkets, &c. for furs, the interfering of different claims produced no important controversy among the Europeans. But in proportion as the settlements were extended, and in proportion as the trade with the natives became valuable, the jealousies of the nations who had made discoveries and settlements on the coast were alarmed, and each power took measures to secure and extend its possessions, at the expense of its rivals. From the earliest settlement of the Colonies to the treaty of Paris in 1763, they were often harassed by frequent wars with the Indians, French, Spaniards, and Dutch. During the Indian wars, the savages were often instigated by the French and Dutch to fall on the English settlements, in order to exterminate the colonists, or drive them from the country. These wars were by far the most distressing; the first settlers lived in continual fear and anxiety, for fear their Indian foes would fall upon them in some unguarded moment, and oftentimes they had to struggle to prevent their entire extermination. After the colonies had subdued the Indians in their immediate vicinity, they were assailed by the French and Indians. The French possessed Canada, and had made a number of settlements in Florida, and claimed the country on both sides of the Mississippi. To secure and extend their claims they established a line of forts back of the English settlements, from Canada to Florida. They used much art and persuasion to gain over the Indians to their interest, in which they were generally successful. Encroachments were accordingly made on the English possessions, and mutual injuries succeeded, which soon broke out into open war. In order to put a stop to the depredations of the French and Indians, it was contemplated to conquer Canada. In 1690 the Commissioners of the Colonies projected an expedition against Quebec. The land forces ordered for this invasion consisted of 850 men, raised from the Colonies of New England and New York, and commanded by Gen. Winthrop. At the same time a fleet of armed ships and transports, with 1800 men, under Sir William Phipps, was ordered to sail up the St. Lawrence, and co |