mounted volunteers of Kentucky marched off for Greeneville, to be mustered and dismissed . . . there being no further service" for them.1

On October 15th, they returned to their homes, flushed with the glory of a successful campaign, and fully convinced that regulars were not so bad a source of defence for the frontier as they had supposed.

General Wayne and his regulars retired to Fort Greeneville for the winter, and entered upon the long and tedious negotiations which finally resulted in the treaty of that name 2 (August 3, 1795), by which the Northwestern tribes surrendered all claims south of the Ohio River."

1 "Journal of General Wayne's Campaign; '

Durrett MSS.

2 Full details of the negotiations, Burnet's "Notes on the Northwestern Territory," Chs. 10-12.

3 Butler, p. 239.

CHAPTER VII

CONFLICTS OVER THE COMMERCIAL HIGHWAY OF THE WEST

THE anti-federal sentiment in Kentucky, which had been pronounced from the first, had, as we have seen, been measurably weakened by the successful termination, of Wayne's expedition against the Indian country, as that expedition had shown not only the good intention, but the admirable efficiency, of the new government. Two serious obstacles, however, still stood in the way of the creation of a strong and loyal feeling for the central government. As long as the British were allowed to keep possession of the military posts in the Northwest, and as long as Spain was permitted to impede the progress of the West, by interfering with the free use of the Mississippi River, so long might the Federal Government expect unstinted abuse from the Kentucky people. She might achieve limitless glory and success, in other directions, but these were the questions which concerned the daily life and present safety of Kentucky, and Kentucky's estimate of the government depended, in the last analysis, upon her solution of them. The satisfactory adjustment of these questions was, indeed, a pretty fair test of the government's efficiency, for England was not inclined to treat her treaty obligations with any great consideration, being well aware that the United States had also failed to carry out certain, not less important, features of the treaty. Spain also felt that she had been unfairly dealt with, as

England and the United States had agreed upon a secret clause in the treaty, providing that the Yazoo Creek should be the Northern boundary of West Florida, in case England should succeed in holding it, but the thirty-first parallel in case West Florida should go to Spain.1 His Catholic Majesty was, therefore, in no mood to grant concessions to the new republic, more especially as he still hoped to use his control over the Mississippi River as a lever to cut off the western settlements from the Union, and to annex them to his own vast dominions in America.

Of these two matters, the question of the free navigation of the Mississippi was of much the greater importance to Kentucky, especially after Wayne's victory had checked the Indian hostilities along her borders. The fact, therefore, that the Federal Government found it necessary to arrange affairs with England first, was exceedingly distasteful to the Kentuckians. They felt that a war against Great Britain would open to them the opportunity of forcibly assuming control of the Mississippi; while a war with France, which seemed the alternative, had not this attraction. The enthusiasm with which Genet's agents had been received in the western country, the organization of the Democratic clubs, and the creation of George Rogers Clark's "Revolutionary Legions on the Mississippi," had all indicated this feeling. There were few of the more reputable sort, it is true, who had been willing to go the length of entirely supporting Genet; but his actions had been disavowed by France, and, under the wise management of his successor, Fauchet, French enthusiasm had reawakened, and, with it, an intensified hatred of the British.

1 Fiske's "Critical Period of American History," pp. 33, 208.

Under these conditions, the wise policy for England would have been to conciliate America, but England has never known much about conciliation. As she saw the enthusiasm for France reasserting itself throughout the States, her natural conclusion was that these two countries were preparing to form another alliance against her, and, as if to show how little she cared for such an alliance, she at once began a course of aggression against our commerce, which daily added strength to the French party in America, and soon brought us to a point where a declaration of war against her seemed almost inevitable. This prospect was most pleasing to the people of Kentucky. Their consternation and anger were, therefore, intense, when' news came that Washington had determined, if possible, to avert the war, by sending an envoy to England, for the purpose of attempting to negotiate a treaty; and this anger was heightened into rage, when the name of the envoy was made known.

Chief Justice John Jay was regarded by Kentuckians as an arch conspirator against the interest of the western country. They had never forgotten the proposition, made by him in the summer of 1785, to concede to Spain, for a period of twenty-five years,' the control of the Mississippi River, in return for certain commercial concessions which would have benefited the Eastern States alone, and his appointment was regarded in Kentucky as a direct, and deliberate insult from the Federal Government. On May 24, 1794, before Jay was halfway across the Atlantic, a large

1 The object of this, wrote Monroe to Governor Henry of Virginia, "is to break up the settlements on the western waters . . . so as to throw the weight of the population eastward and keep it there, to appreciate the vacant lands in New York and Massachusetts," (Quoted in Dixon's "Missouri Compromise and its Repeal," p. 38).

public meeting was held at Lexington, representing various parts of the State, and bent upon expressing the indignation of the Commonwealth. After an impassioned discussion, a set of resolutions was drawn up and delivered to the "Kentucky Gazette" for publication.1

Going straight to the point upon which the greatest interest was felt, these resolutions read as though Jay had been sent out with the express purpose of resigning all claims to the control of the Mississippi. They declare, in the first section,

"That the inhabitants West of the Appalachian Mountains are entitled by nature and by stipulation to the free and undisturbed navigation of the River Mississippi.

"That we have a right to expect and demand that Spain should be compelled immediately to acknowledge our right, or that an end be put to all negotiations on that subject.

"That the injuries and insults done and offered by Great Britain to America call loudly for redress, and that we will to the utmost of our abilities support the General Government in any attempt to obtain redress.

"That the recent appointment of the enemy of the Western Country to negotiate with that nation, and the tame submission of the General Government when we alone were injured by Great Britain, make it highly necessary that we should at this time state our just demands to the President and Congress.'

The same number of the "Gazette" reports, with evident satisfaction, certain overt insults offered to the envoy

1 Full text of the Resolutions in "Kentucky Gazette," May 31, 1794.

2 For an impassioned statement of the causes of this hatred of Jay in Kentucky Cf. "Kentucky Gazette," January 25, 1794; also February 8, 1794. See also Littell's "Political Transactions," Ch. IV.