“Your petitioners beg leave humbly to inform your Majesty, that the lands, to the west of the [Appalachian] mountains, are extremely fertile, the climate very fine and healthy, and the waters of the Mississippi [River], and those of the Potomack [River in Virginia], are only separated by one small ridge of mountains. . . ; British goods may be carried at little expense, and afforded reasonably to the Indians in those parts, [if] the lands to the west of the said mountains were settled, and a fort erected in some proper place there. . . ; if your petitioners meet with that success they have the greatest reason to expect, it will . . . extend your Majesty’s empire in America; . . . and, in a short space of time very considerably increase your Majesty’s revenue. . . .”

“Your petitioners, for these great and national ends and purposes . . . have entered into partnership, by the name of the Ohio company, to settle these [lands] to the west of the said mountains. . . . Your petitioners . . . most humbly pray that your Majesty will be graciously pleased to encourage this their said undertaking, by giving instructions to your governor of Virginia to grant to your petitioners a tract . . . of 500,000 acres of land.”

John Hanbury, London merchant, and colonial Virginian investors, petition to King George II of Great Britain, delivered to the king’s ministers in 1748

Using the excerpt, answer (a), (b), and (c).

(a) Briefly identify ONE cause of the development depicted in the petition.

(b) Briefly describe ONE argument made in the petition.

(c) Briefly describe ONE similarity between the British-Native American relations described in the petition and French-Native American relations.
10 points