officers in proportion as other French troops; all lawful plunder to be equally divided, according to the custom of war; those who serve the expedition will have their choice of receiving their lands or one dollar per day.'

"General St. Clair intimated to Governor Shelby, early in November, that this commission had been given to General Clark. This communication was followed by one from General Wayne, of January 6, 1794, inclosing his orders to Major Winston, commanding the United States cavalry in Kentucky, which

vided they manage their business with prudence, whether there is any legal authority to punish or restrain them, at least, before they have actually accomplished it. For, if it is lawful for any one citizen of a state to leave it, it is equally so for any number of them to do it. It is also lawful for them to carry any quantity of provisions, arms and ammunition. And if the act is lawful in itself, there is nothing but the particular intention with which it is done that can possibly make it unlawful; but I know of no law

placed that officer and his men under the orders of Governor Shelby, and promised that 'should more force be wanted, it should not be withheld notwithstanding our proximity to the combined force of hostile Indians.'

"After the receipt of these letters, Governor Shelby addressed the Federal secretary of state on the 13th of January, 1794, and after acknowledging receipt of the information in regard to Clark and the French emissaries, proceeded as follows: 'I have grave doubts, even if General Clark and the Frenchmen attempt to carry this plan into execution, pro

which inflicts a punishment on intention only, or any criterion by which to decide what would be sufficient evidence of that intention. even if it were a proper subject of legal cen

sure.'

This communication, precluding any effectual interposition on the part of the governor of Kentucky, the president of the United States issued his proclamation on the 22d of April, apprising the people of the west of the unlawful project and warning them of the consequence of engaging in it. About the same time General Wayne was ordered to es

tablish a strong military post at Fort Massac on the lower Ohio and to prevent by force, if necessary, the descent of any hostile party down that river.

Governor Shelby sympathized with the people of Kentucky in the matter of the navigation of the Mississippi, but was not inclined to assert the authority of the state against the federal government, though his political opponents charged that he was conspiring with the French party. In January he addressed the secretary of state as follows: "Much less would I assume a power to exercise it against Frenchmen, whom I consider friends and brothers, in favor of the Spaniard whom I view as an enemy and tyrant. I shall also feel but little inclination to take an active part in punishing or restraining any of my fellowcitizens for a supposed intention only, to grat ify the fears of the minister of a prince who openly withholds from us an invaluable right; or one who secretly instigates against us a most savage and cruel enemy. Yet, whatever may be my private opinion as a man, a friend to liberty, an American citizen and an inhabitant of the western waters, I shall at all times hold it as my duty to perform whatever may be constitutionally required of me as governor of Kentucky by the president of the United States."

The secretary of state replied to Governor Shelby stating that negotiations with the Spanish government had been under consideration since December, 1791, but were delayed by the unsettled condition of affairs in Europe.

In the spring of 1793 Genet, the minister of the French Republic, landed at Charleston and was received with such demonstrative enthu

siasm as to have carried him beyond all discretion. He made a progress through the country to New York, the demonstration at Charleston being repeated in each of the states through which he passed. This excited Frenchman was so elated by his reception that

he entirely ignored the neutrality proclamation of the president, hitherto given, and which now appears for the first time in a history of Kentucky. He armed and equipped privateers to prey upon the commerce of England and Spain, and enlisted crews for these vessels in American ports as though he were in his native land. Men were enlisted openly by agents of the French government; veterans of the late war were commissioned to lead them and in Kentucky especially, there was no lack of volunteers. The seven long years of the Revolutionary struggle had closed with nearly every man a soldier; those who had not met the English armies in the field had learned. the arts of war in the struggles against the savage enemy. There is an attraction in war for men of spirit and once a soldier, always a soldier, may be accepted as almost a truism. Especially was this true at that time in Kentucky; indeed it is true today as was shown in the late war with Spain, when the men who had served in the War Between the States were the first to offer their services to the government. None were more disappointed than the veterans of the Union and Confederate armies who were rejected because of their advanced age.

It was proposed by the French agents to organize and equip in Kentucky a force of 2,000 men and with them man a fleet which should float down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and capture New Orleans, the capital of the Spanish possessions in America. There was no lack of fighting men in Kentucky at that time as there has been no lack at any time, and a descent upon New Orleans was apparently a matter of the near future. But there was to come a check upon these warlike preparations. Meetings were held throughout the state at which there were adopted resolutions of hostility to the administration of General Washington, and there was something more than a hint at separation from the Union. The people of that day should not

be too harshly judged by those of the present. They felt themselves neglected by those in authority; they were orphans with none to care for them and it is in keeping with the spirit of the people that from the days of Daniel Boone to the present moment, they have proposed to take care of themselves and have done so. They needed the free access to markets which was at that time afforded by the Mississippi river alone. If the federal government would not secure it for them, they proposed to secure it themselves.

It may be that strange new chapters in history would have been written had that flotilla and its two thousand Kentuckians passed down the two great rivers to New Orleans. But this was not to be. Genet had overshot the mark. Vainly imagining himself as powerful in the United States as he would have been in the Jacobin clubs of France; carried away by the mad fury of the French Revolutionists, he forgot his high station as the representative of his country to a friendly but neutral government, and defied the authority of that government and the solemn proclamation of its representative head. There could be but one result;-his immediate recall at the instance of the American government which he had insulted by ignoring its laws and the proclamation of its president. With Genet recalled as minister, his commissions were of no value; especially, as all of his acts were disavowed by the French government.

The movement against New Orleans was abandoned at once, and the French agents who had fostered the movement in Kentucky gave over their task. One of them, La Chaise, on May 14th, said to the Lexington Club: "That unforeseen events had stopped the march of 2,000 brave Kentuckians to go by the strength of their arms and take from the Spaniards the empire of the Mississippi, in

sure to their country the navigation of it, break the chains of the Americans and their brethren, the French, and lay the foundations of the prosperity and happiness of two great nations, destined by nature to be one."

Little did this flamboyant Frenchman realize that this "Empire of the Mississippi" was soon to pass into the control of his own country and finally into that of the United States, adding an empire thereto for the paltry sum of fifteen million dollars. There are romances in history superior to any that the greatest novelist has conceived. The Louisiana Purchase by Jefferson outside the bounds of the constitution though it may have been, as some have claimed, and that of Alaska by Seward, are great epics in the grand song of empire which has been a part of the history of our unparallelled country. The God of Nations seems to have watched over us, protected us, and led us forward in the march of the universe until the Union has become "the greatest among ten thousand" and altogether powerful.

There was no longer an opportunity for an advance upon the Spanish posts along the lower Mississippi, and the Democratic Societies were dissolved there being no longer reason for their existence. It is difficult at this day, to fully understand the intensity of feeling which characterized the Kentuckians of that day. They were terribly in earnest, of that there is no doubt. The Ohio and the Mississippi today flow unvexed to the sea. Perhaps if there were obstacles now as there were in those earlier days, we, the descendants of those pioneer fathers, would be as ready as they to fight for what we deemed our rights. Happily there is no call to arms now and the most serious questions Kentuckians have to solve are settled at the peaceful ballot box. Thus may it ever be.

Those gentlemen holding official positions as state officers today may be interested in knowing the salaries that were originally paid to their predecessors. Certainly the taxpayers will be interested. The governor was paid $1,000 per annum. This would scarcely pay the traveling expenses of the governor of today, who travels to many points as the "orator of the day." The appellate judges received $666 per annum; the secretary of state, the auditor, the treasurer, and the attorney general, received $333, each. It is interesting to consider the probable number of aspirants for these several positions today at the rate of compensation above stated. It happens that there were patriots in those days.

There were forty-two representatives in the general assembly, representing the various counties as follows: Bourbon, five: Clark, two; Fayette, six; Green, one; Hardin, one; Harrison, one; Jefferson, two; Logan, one; Lincoln, three; Mercer, three; Madison, three, Mason, three; Nelson, three; Shelby, one; Scott, two; Washington, two, and Woodford, three.

It will be seen that the number of counties had increased to seventeen at this time and from that date forward there has been a steady increase until there are now one hundred and nineteen counties in the state, a number not likely to be increased if the necessities of the commonwealth are considered. There was at one time a tendency towards the

creation of new counties, without there being shown a real necessity there for. It was deemed good politics when a bill for the erection of a new county was introduced to name it for the then governor, and to give to the county site the name of the lieutenant governor. This plan was a shrewd one, since the general assembly was, as a rule, in political accord with the administration.

As an illustration, the county of Knott may be mentioned. It was created while that admirable and genial statesman, J. Proctor Knott, was governor of Kentucky. Its chief town was named Hindman, in honor of that accomplished gentleman, James A. Hindman, who was at that time liuetenant governor of Kentucky. No happier selections could have been made. Governor Knott had won high honor in the congress of the United States as chairman of the judiciary committee and was recognized throughout the Union as one of its foremost statesmen. James A. Hindman had served in the Union army as captain of artillery, and many times as the representative of his county in the general assembly. He was a citizen of whom any constituency might be proud, and one of his lesser distinctions was that he defeated the writer of these words for the nomination for lieutenant governor, because the element that then controlled the politics of Kentucky had concluded that the time had arrived when a man who had served in the Union army ought to be placed on the ticket.

Reference has already been made to the treaty with the Indians made at Greenville, Ohio, in 1795, which put an end to future invasions of Kentucky by the savages from the north. In 1796, a like treaty was made with the southern Indians, and thenceforth the state was free from savage incursions.

Butler, the historian of peace rather than of war, says of this period: "These pacific measures, so important to the prosperity of the one party, and the existence of the other, were most essentially promoted by the British treaty concluded on the 19th of November, 1794, and the equally important treaty with Spain agreed to on the 17th of October, 1795. In regard to the British treaty which convulsed this country more than any other measure since the Revolution, and which required all the weight of Washington's great and beloved name to give it the force of law, no section of the country was more deeply interested than Kentucky; yet, perhaps, in no section of the Union was it more obnoxious. Its whole contents encountered the strong prepossession of the Whigs against everything British; and this feeling seems to have prevailed among the people of the southern states, possibly from more intense sufferings in the Revolutionary war, than in any other portion of the Union, on account of their sympathies with France. Yet now, when the passions which agitated the country so deeply and spread the roots of party so widely, have subsided, the award of sober history must be, that the British treaty was dictated by the soundest interests of this young and growing country. What else saved our infant institutions from the dangerous ordeal of war? What restored the western posts, the pledges of western tranquility, but this much abused convention? The military establishments of the British upon the western frontier were to be surrendered before the 1st of June, 1795. Further than this, Kentucky was not particularly interested, but it is due to the reputation

of the immortal Father of his Country and the statesmen of Kentucky who supported his administration in this obnoxious measure, to mention that Mr. Jay informed the president in a private letter, that to do more was impossible, further concessions on the part of England could not be obtained.' Fortunate was it for the new Union and young institutions of the infant republic that they were allowed by this treaty time to obtain root and to fortify themselves in the national sympathies and confidence."

Spain had long dreamed of a western empire under her domination. Through Gardoqui and Wilkinson she had made abortive efforts to win Kentucky to her schemes, yet she was still hopeful. The Spain of that day. was not the weak and powerless Spain of today. That country was then so powerful as to be reckoned with by the other powers of Europe; today, there are none to do her reverence. Then she used all the arts of diplomacy to gain "the dominion and control of the great Mississippi valley, and consequently the navigation of the great artery of commerce. which flowed through its center and led to the Entranced by the grandeur and glory of this promise to the eye, they could not consent to abandon the hope of its realization."

ocean.

While negotiations were pending between the Spanish court and the United States, they were compelled to wait upon the affairs of the former government which was in danger of being involved in the "maelstrom of war which was devastating the central nations of Europe." Here was the newest of nations, the young giant of the west, compelled to wait upon the developments of a game of war played upon the chess-board of Europe, upon which the giant could not move even a pawn. Finally in June, 1795, the president took a hand in the game and sent Thomas Pinckney to Madrid to negotiate a treaty. Of this embassy, Smith in his history, says: "By the end of October, terms mutually satisfactory