of the Six Nations the lands south of the Ohio, a purchase which it was not doubted Sir William might make, and then to procure from the King a grant of as much territory as the Company, which it was intended to form, would require. Governor Franklin, accordingly, forwarded to his father an application for a grant, together with a letter from Sir William, recommending the plan to the ministry; all of which was duly communicated to the proper department. But at that time there were various interests bearing upon this plan of Franklin. The old Ohio Company was still suing, through its agent, Colonel George Mercer, for a perfection of the original grant. The soldiers claiming under Dinwiddie's proclamation had their tale of rights and grievances. Individuals, to whom grants had been made by Virginia, wished them completed. General Lyman, from Connecticut we believe, was soliciting a new grant similar to that now asked by Franklin; and the ministers themselves were divided as to the policy and propriety of establishing any settlements so far in the interior,-Shelburne being in favor of the new colony, Hillsborough opposed to it.

The Company was organized, however, and the nominally leading man therein being Mr. Thomas Walpole, a London banker of eminence, it was known as the Walpole Company. Franklin continued privately to make friends among the ministry, and to press upon them the policy of making large settlements in the West; and, as the old way of managing the Indians by superintendents was just then in bad odor in consequence of the expense attending it, the cabinet council so far approved the new plan as to present it for examination to the Board of Trade, with members of which Franklin had also been privately conversing.

This was in the autumn of 1767. But, before any conclusion was come to, it was necessary to arrange definitely that boundary line, which had been vaguely talked of in 1765, and with respect to which Sir William Johnson had written to the ministry, who had mislaid his letters, and given him no instructions. The necessity of arranging this boundary was also kept in mind by the continued and growing irritation of the Indians, who found themselves invaded from every side. This irritation became so great during the autumn of 1767, that Gage wrote to the Governor of Pennsylvania on the subject. The Governor communicated his letter to the Assembly on the 5th of January, 1768, and representations were at once sent to

England, expressing the necessity of having the Indian line fixed. Franklin, the father, all this time, was urging the same necessity upon the ministers in England; and about Christmas of 1767, Sir William's letters on the subject having been found, orders were sent him to complete the proposed purchase from the Six Nations, and settle all differences. But the project for a colony was for the time dropped, a new administration coming in which was not that way disposed.

Sir William Johnson having received, early in the spring, the orders from England relative to a new treaty with the Indians, at once took steps to secure a full attendance.* Notice was given to the various colonial governments, to the Six Nations, the Delawares, and the Shawanese, and a Congress was appointed to meet at Fort Stanwix during the following October. It met upon the 24th of that month, and was attended by representatives from New Jersey, Virginia, and Pennsylvania; by Sir William and his deputies; by the agents of those traders who had suffered in the war of 1763; and by deputies from all of the Six Nations, the Delawares, and the Shawanese. The first point to be settled was the boundary line which was to determine the Indian lands of the West from that time forward; and this line the Indians, upon the 1st of November, stated should begin on the Ohio, at the mouth of the Cherokee (or Tennessee) river; thence go up the Ohio and Alleghany to Kittaning; thence across to the Susquehannah, &c.; whereby the whole country south of the Ohio and Alleghany, to which the Six Nations had any claim, was transferred to the British. One deed, for a part of this land, was made on the 3d of November to William Trent, attorney for twenty-two traders, whose goods had been destroyed by the Indians in 1763. The tract conveyed by this was between the Kenhawa and Monongahela, and was by the traders named Indiana. Two days afterward, a deed for the remaining western lands was made to the King, and the price agreed on paid down.† These deeds were made upon the express agreement, that no claim should ever be based upon previous treaties, those of Lancaster, Logstown, &c. ; and they were signed by the chiefs of the Six Nations, for

For an account of this long-lost treaty see Plain Facts, pp. 65 — 104, or Butler's Kentucky. 2d Edition. pp. 472-488.

There were also given two deeds, of lands in the interior of Pennsylvania, one to Croghan, and the other to the proprietaries of that colony.

themselves, their allies and dependents, the Shawanese, Delawares, Mingoes of Ohio, and others; but the Shawanese and Delaware deputies present did not sign them.

Such was the treaty of Stanwix, whereon rests the title by purchase to Kentucky, western Virginia, and Pennsylvania. It was a better foundation, perhaps, than that given by previous treaties, but was essentially worthless; for the lands conveyed were not occupied or hunted on by those conveying them. In truth, we cannot doubt that this immense grant was obtained by the influence of Sir William Johnson, in order that the new colony, of which he was to be governor, might be founded there. The fact, that such an extent of country was ceded voluntarily, — not after a war, not by hard persuasion, but at once and willingly, - satisfies us that the whole affair had been previously settled with the New York savages, and that the Ohio Indians had no voice in the matter.

But the grant was made. The white man could now quiet his conscience when driving the native from his forest home, and feel sure that an army would back his pretensions. A new company was at once organized in Virginia, called the "Mississippi Company," and a petition sent to the King for two millions and a half of acres in the West. Among the signers of this were Francis Lightfoot Lee, Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, and Arthur Lee. The gentleman last named was the agent for the petitioners in England. This application was referred to the Board of Trade on the 9th of March, 1769, and after that we hear nothing of it.*

Meantime more than one bold man had ventured for a little while into the beautiful valleys of Kentucky, and, on the 1st of May, 1769, there was one going forth from his "peaceable habitation on the Yadkin river in North Carolina," whose name has since gone far and wide over this little planet of ours, he having become the type of his class. This was Daniel Boone. He crossed the mountains, and spent that summer and the next winter in the West. But, while he was rejoicing in the abundance of buffalo, deer, and turkeys among the cane-brakes, longer heads were meditating still that new colony, the plan of which had been lying in silence

Plain Facts, p. 69.- Butler's Kentucky, p. 475.

Boone's Narrative, which may be found in Carey's Museum, Vol. II.

p. 324.

for two years and more. The Board of Trade was again called on to report upon the application, and Lord Hillsborough, the President, reported against it. This called out Franklin's celebrated "Ohio Settlement," a paper written with so much ability, that the King's Council put by the official report, and granted the petition, a step which mortified the noble lord so much that he resigned his official station.* The petition now needed only the royal sanction, which was not given until August 14th, 1772; but in 1770, the Ohio Company was merged in Walpole's, and, the claims of the soldiers of 1756 being acknowledged both by the new Company and by government, all claims were quieted. Nothing was ever done, however, under the grant to Walpole, the Revolution soon coming upon America. After the Revolution, Mr. Walpole and his associates petitioned Congress respecting their lands, called by them "Vandalia," but could get no help from that body. What was finally done by Virginia with the claims of this and other companies, we do not find written, but presume their lands were all looked on as forfeited.

During the years in which Franklin, Pownall, and their friends, were trying to get the great western land company into operation, actual settlers were crossing the mountains all too rapidly; for the Ohio Indians "viewed the settlements with an uneasy and jealous eye," and did "not scruple to say, that they must be compensated for their right, if people settled thereon notwithstanding the cession by the Six Nations." It has been said, also, that Lord Dunmore, then governor of Virginia, authorized surveys and settlements on the western lands, notwithstanding the proclamation of 1763; but Mr. Sparks gives us a letter from him, in which this is expressly denied. However, surveyors did go down even to the Falls of the Ohio, and the whole region south of the Ohio was filling with white men. The futility of the Fort Stanwix treaty, and the ignorance or contempt of it by the fierce Shawanese, are well seen in the meeting between them and Bullitt, one of the early emigrants, in 1773. || Bullitt, on his way down. Sparks's Franklin, Vol. IV. p. 302.

*

Sparks's Washington, Vol. II. p. 483, et seq. Washington's " Journal to the West, in 1770." Vol. II. p. 531.

§ Ibid., p. 378.

Butler's Kentucky, p. 20.

Plain Facts, p. 149.
Sparks's Washington,

the Ohio, stopped, and singly sought the savages at one of their towns. He then told them of his proposed settlement, and his wish to live at peace with them; and said, that, as they had received nothing under the treaty of 1768, it was intended to make them presents the next year. The Indians considered the talk of the Long Knife, and the next day agreed to his proposed settlement, provided he did not disturb them in their hunting south of the Ohio; a provision wholly inconsistent with the Stanwix deed.

Among the foremost speculators in western lands at that time was George Washington. He had always regarded the proclamation of 1763 as a mere temporary expedient to quiet the savages, and, being better acquainted with the value of western lands than most of those who could command means, he early began to buy beyond the mountains. His agent in selecting lands was Crawford, afterwards burnt by the Ohio Indians. In September, 1767, we find Washington writing to Crawford on this subject, and looking forward to the occupation of the western territory; and in 1773, being entitled, under the King's proclamation of 1763, (which gave a bounty to officers and soldiers who had served in the old French war,) to ten thousand acres of land, he became deeply interested in the country beyond the mountains, and had some correspondence respecting the importation of settlers from Europe. Indeed, had not the Revolutionary war been just then on the eve of breaking out, Washington would in all probability have become the leading settler of the West, and all our history been changed.*

But though that Revolution retained him east of the mountains, it did not come quick enough to prevent such preparations for strong settlements in the West, while yet nominally British, as secured a population there when America cast off her allegiance. And here again we see the adaptation that exists in human affairs; for, had there been no western settlements when the war began in earnest, the power of Britain operating from Canada, in connexion with the whole body of Indians, must have changed, and might have materially changed, the event of that strife. No human being knows how far the struggles of Boone, Logan, and their companions, together with the genius of Clark, affected the issue of the