1784. Difficulties between Great Britain and United States. 261

While these various steps, bearing upon the interests of the whole west, were taken by Congress, Washington, and the Assembly of Virginia, Kentucky was organizing herself upon a new basis, Virginia having united the three counties, with their separate courts, into one District, having a court of common law and chancery for the whole territory that now forms the State, and to this District restored the for-a-time-discarded name, Kentucky.The sessions of the court thus organized resulted in the foundation of Danville, which in consequence for a season became the centre and capital of the District.*

1784.

It might have been reasonably hoped that peace with the mother country would have led to comparative prosperity within the newly formed nation. But such was not the case. Congress had no power to compel the States to fulfil the provisions of the treaty which had been concluded, and Britain was not willing to comply on her side with all its terms, until evidence was given by the other party that no infraction of them was to be feared from the rashness of democratic leaders. Among the provisions of that treaty were the following:

ART. 4. It is agreed that creditors on either side shall meet with no lawful impediment to the recovery of the full value, in sterling money, of all bona fide debts heretofore contracted.

ART. 5, It is agreed that the Congress shall earnestly recommend it to the Legislatures of the respective States, to provide for the restitution of all estates, rights, and properties, which have been confiscated, belonging to real British subjects, and also of the estates, rights, and properties of persons resident in districts in the possession of his Majesty's

Marshall, i. 159.

262

Provisions of Treaty of Peace.

1784. arms, and who have not borne arms against the said United States. And that persons of any other description shall have free liberty to go to any part or parts of any of the thirteen United States, and therein to remain twelve months, unmolested in their endeavors to obtain the restitution of such of their estates, rights, and properties, as may have been confiscated; and that Congress shall also earnestly recommend to the several States a reconsideration and revision of all acts or laws regarding the premises, so as to render the said laws or acts perfectly consistent, not only with justice and equity, but with that spirit of conciliation which, on the return of the blessings of peace, should universally prevail, And that Congress shall also earnestly recommend to the several States, that the estates, rights, and properties, of such last mentioned persons, shall be restored to them, they refunding to any persons who may be now in possession, the bona fide price (where any has been given) which such persons may have paid on purchasing any of the said lands, rights, or properties, since the confiscation. And it is agreed, that all persons who have any interest in confiscated lands, either by debts, marriage settlements, or otherwise, shall meet with no lawful impediment in the prosecution of their just rights.

ART. 6. That there shall be no future confiscations made, nor any prosecutions commenced against any person or persons for, or by reason of, the part which he or they may have taken in the present war; and that no person shall, on that account, suffer any future loss or damage, either in his person, liberty, or property; and that those who may be in confinement on such charges, at the time of the ratification of the treaty in America, shall be immediately set at liberty, and the prosecutions so commenced be discontinued.

ART. 7. There shall be a firm and perpetual peace between his Britannic Majesty and the said States, and between the subjects of the one and the citizens of the other, wherefore, all hostilities, both by sea and land, shall from henceforth cease: all prisoners, on both sides, shall be set at liberty; and his Britannic Majesty shall, with all convenient speed, and without causing any destruction, or carrying away any negroes or other property of the American inhabitants, withdraw all his armies, garrisons, and fleets, from the said United States, and from every post, place, and harbor, within the same; leaving in all fortifications the American artillery that may be therein; and shall also order and cause all archives, records, deeds, and papers, belonging to any of the said States, or their citizens, which, in the course of the war, may have fallen into the hands of his officers, to be forthwith restored and delivered to the proper States and persons to whom they belong.

* See Land Laws, p. 11.

1784.

Virginia refuses to fulfil Treaty.

263

That these stipulations were wise and just, none, perhaps doubted; but they opened a door for disputes and troubles, through which troubles enough swarmed in; and we may now, with as much propriety as at any time, say the little that our limits will allow us to say, in reference to those disagreements between England and America, which for so long a time kept alive the hopes and enmities of the Indians, contending as they were, for their native lands and the burial places of their fathers. The origin of the difficulty was an alleged infraction of the provisional treaty, signed November 30th, 1782, on the part of the British, who showed an intention to take away with them from New York certain negroes claimed as the "property of the American inhabitants," none of which, by the terms both of that and the definitive treaty, was to be removed. Against this intention Washington had remonstrated, and Congress resolved in vain: in reply to all remonstrances it was said that the slaves were either booty taken in war, and as such, by the laws of war, belonged to the captors, and could not come within the meaning of the treaty; or were freemen and could not be enslaved.* It was undoubtedly true in regard to many of the negroes, that they were taken in war, and as such, (if property at all,) the booty of the captors; but it was equally certain that another portion of them consisted of runaways, and by the terms of the treaty, as the Americans all thought, should have been restored or paid for. It was in April, 1783, that the purposes of England in relation to the negroes became apparent; in May the Commander-in-chief and Congress tried, as we have said, ineffectually, to bring about a different course of action. Upon the 3d of September, the definitive treaty was signed at Paris; on the 25th of November the British left New York carrying the negroes claimed by the Americans with them; while upon the 4th of the following January, 1784, the treaty was ratified by the United States, and on the 9th of April by England. Under these circumstances Virginia and several other States saw fit to decline compliance with the article respecting the recovery of debts; refused to repeal the laws previously existing against British creditors; and upon the 22d of next June, after the ratification of peace by both parties, the Old Dominion expressly declined to ful

Marshall, i. 173.

+ See Mr. Jay's excellent statement of facts and principles. Secret Journals, iv. 275. Washington thought the British unfair and dishonest in their retention of the western posts, and considered the non-payment of their debts by the Americans, as used by them for a mere excuse. Sparks' Washington, iv. 163. 179.

264

Posts retained by British.

1784.

fil the treaty in its completeness. This refusal, or neglect, which was equivalent to a refusal, on the part of the States to abide strictly by the treaty, caused England, on the other hand, to retain possession of the western posts, and threatened to involve the two countries again in open warfare.

The dispute, therefore, originated in a difference of opinion between the parties as to the meaning of that part of the seventh article which relates to the "carrying away negroes:" this was followed by a plain infraction of the fourth article on the part of the States; and that by an equally plain violation of the provision in regard to evacuating the posts (article 7) on the side of Great Britain.

In March, 1785, John Adams was sent to England to "require" the withdrawal of his Majesty's armies from the posts still held by them. This requisition he made on the 8th of the following December; and was told in reply that when the fourth article was respected by the States, the seventh would be by England. These facts having been laid before Congress, that body, in March, 1787, pressed upon the States the necessity of repealing all laws violating the treaty; but Virginia, in substance, refused to comply with the requisition respecting British creditors, until the western forts were evacuated, and the slaves that had been taken, returned or paid for.*

From what has been said, it will be easily surmised that, to the request of Governor Clinton of New York, relative to the abandonment of the western posts within that state, Niagara, Oswego, &c.—as well as to the demand of Congress in the following July, for the possession of all the strongholds along the lakes-General Haldimand replied, as he had done to Baron Steuben, "I have received no orders from his Majesty to deliver them up."

While the condition of the western frontier remained thus uncertain, settlers were rapidly gathering about the inland forts. In the spring of this year, Pittsburgh, which had been long settled and once before surveyed, was regularly laid out under the direction of Tench Francis, agent for the Messrs. Penn; who, as adherents to England in the revolutionary struggle, had forfeited a large part of their possessions in America. The lots were soon sold, and improvements immediately began; though, as would appear from the following extract from Arthur Lee's journal, who

Secret Journals, iv. 185 to 287.-Pitkin, ii. 192 to 200.-Marshall, i. 167 to 188. + Marshall, i. 177, &c.

1

1784.

First Convention in Kentucky.

265

passed through Pittsburgh on his way to the Indian council at Fort McIntosh, it was not, late in its first year, very prepossessing or promising in its appearance:

"Pittsburgh is inhabited ALMOST ENTIRELY by Scots and Irish, who live in paltry log-houses, and are as dirty as if in the north of Ireland, or even Scotland. There is a great deal of trade carried on; the goods being brought at the vast expense of fortyfive shillings per hundred, from Philadelphia and Baltimore. They take, in the shops, money, wheat, flour and skins. There are in the town four attorneys, two doctors, and not a priest of any persuasion, nor church, nor chapel. The rivers encroach fast on the town; and to such a degree, that, as a gentleman told me, the Allegheny had within thirty years of his memory, carried away one hundred yards. The place, I believe, will never be very considerable."*

The detention of the western fortresses, however, though of little moment to Pennsylvania, was a very serious evil to the more distant settlers of Kentucky. The northern savages again prepared their scalping knives, and the traders from Canada, if not the agents of the British government, urged them to harass the frontiers. Although Kentucky, therefore, grew rapidly during 1784, the emigrants numbering twelve,† and the whole population thirty thousand;‡—although a friendly meeting was held by Thomas J. Dalton, with the Piankeshaws, at Vincennes, in April;||| and though trade was extending itself into the clearings and among the canebrakes-Daniel Brodhead having opened his store at Louisville the previous year, and James Wilkinson having come to Lexington in February as the leader of a large commercial company, formed in Philadelphia;§-still the cool and sagacious mind of Logan led him to prepare his fellow citizens for trial and hardship. He called, in the autumn of 1784, a meeting of the people at Danville, to take measures for defending the country, and at this meeting the whole subject of the position and danger of Kentucky was examined and discussed, and it was agreed that a convention should meet in December to adopt some measures American Pioneer, i. 304.

+ Imlay, 44.

Filson, 22. Filson's work was prepared this year (1784) and the first edition printed at Wilmington, (query, North Carolina or Delaware ?)

Filson, 49.

§ Marshall i. 161. 165. In 1784 Louisville contained 63 houses finished, 37 partly finished, 22 raised but not covered, and more than 100 cabins. (Letters of an American Planter, from 1770 to 1786. Vol. iii. p. 422.)