Under the Banner of St. George
England claimed the whole of North America. She is never modest about her claims. She based her claim on the fact that John Cabot first discovered the conti- nent. England did very little in the way of explora- tion. That she thought herself the sole possessor of the New World is evidenced from the fact that the grants given to the colonies, especially Virginia, and Connecticut extended from "sea to sea." And in the case of Virginia from the wording of the charter it ex-58
tended to the North Pole. It reached for two hundred miles "north and south of Point Comfort, up into the land, throughout, from the sea to the sea, west and northwest." Connecticut was given a strip, the width of the state from "sea to sea." As has been stated France too, claimed the same land. The First Ohio Land Company in 1748 might be said to be the immedi- ate cause of the French and Indian War, which was possibly one of the best things that ever happened the colonies. It not only freed them from subsequent in- fluence of French institutions but it was the school where they learned how to write the Declaration of In- dependence. The battle of Quebec and the Treaty of 1763 made Perry county a part of England's Royal domain and the banner of St. George, figuratively speaking, floated over the hills and valleys in Reading, Pike and Mondaycreek.59