XLVIII. in the revolutionary army, and an active member of the CHAPTER Ohio Company, at the head of a little colony from Massachusetts, had founded, at the mouth of the Muskin- 1788. gum, in close vicinity to Fort Harmar, the town of Marietta, the earliest white settlement, if we except the Moravian missionary stations-hardly, indeed, to be called such within the limits of the present state of Ohio, so named in honor of the French queen, the afterward unfortunate Maria Antoinette. On the arrival of Governor St. Clair, who compiled and published, in conjunc- July 28. tion with the judges, a code for the new territory, the district about Fort Harmar was erected into the county of Washington. A settlement was formed soon after Aug. within Symmes's grant, at Great Bend, near the mouth of the Miami, and Fort Washington was presently built where Cincinnati now stands. By direction of the Virginia Assembly, a road was surveyed and laid out, about three hundred miles long, from Alexandria to the Ohio opposite Marietta. Pennsylvania purchased the triangular tract between Lake Erie and her northern boundary, both territory and jurisdiction, thus securing for herself the harbor of Presque Isle, now Erie. lands of the Connecticut reserve were disposed of some seven years after to a number of land speculators, at a price which produced the Connecticut school fund; but twelve years elapsed before much progress was made in their settlement, by which time Connecticut had ceded her rights of jurisdiction to the United States. The Oliver Phelps, an enterprising speculative citizen of Connecticut, in association with Gorham, late president of Congress, and a member of the Federal Convention from Massachusetts, had purchased from that state the pre-emption right of a large portion of that fertile tract in Western New York, the property of which, by the late XLVIII. CHAPTER arrangement already mentioned, had been yielded up to Massachusetts. The price stipulated was a million of 1788. dollars, payable by installments, in certificates of state July. debt. Phelps held a treaty with the Seneca tribe of the Six Nations, obtained from them an extensive cession, and soon after opened a land-office at Canandaigua. Emigrants soon began to flow in from Connecticut and Massachusetts, and among the rest came Daniel Shays, upon whose humble petition the Massachusetts Legislature, at the session immediately after the ratification of the Federal Constitution, had passed a general vote of pardon and indemnity for all concerned in the late insurrection. Shays lived to a good old age, supported in his latter days by his pension as a revolutionary officer. In a pecuniary point of view, neither the large land purchases in Ohio nor those in New York proved successful speculations. The certificates of Massachusetts debt, at a considerable discount when Phelps made his contract, presently rose in value, and not being able to meet his payments, he was obliged to surrender a part of his purchase. The lands thus surrendered were sold by Massachusetts to Robert Morris, who had also made a previous purchase from Phelps. He mortgaged them to some Dutch capitalists, and some years after, upon the failure of Morris, who became in his old age a prisoner for debt, these Dutchmen obtained possession under the mortgage, and, by the name of the Holland Land Company, opened a land-office at Batavia. But this did not take place till twelve or fourteen years subsequent to the period of which we are now speaking. The State of New York made large sales of the share she had herself retained of these western lands, and the land bounties, originally promised to the soldiers of her Continental line, were also located in this district. Penn XLVIII. sylvania made a similar provision for her Continental sol- CHAPTER diers in her unsettled territory further south. The Six Nations retained but a few trifling reservations of that 1788. vast region which they had lately claimed. The Mohawks had already migrated to Canada in a body, and portions of the other tribes speedily followed. Those who remained sunk into insignificance. New England overflowed into New York; and that state, hitherto, in wealth and population, inferior to Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania-indeed, hardly equal to Maryland and Connecticut-began to advance with rapid strides toward that pre-eminence which she now enjoys. The petition of Kentucky to the Continental Congress for admission into the Federal Union was referred to the July 3. consideration of the new government, to which application was recommended to be made. In consequence of this decision, the fifth Kentucky Convention, in session at Danville, dissolved without framing a state constitution. Brown, the Kentucky delegate in Congress, represented in his correspondence that the eastern states would never agree to the admission of Kentucky "unless Vermont or the District of Maine is brought forward at the same time." He wrote, in the same letter, that M. Gardoqui, the Spanish minister, had assured him, "that if Kentucky will declare her independence, and empower some proper person to negotiate, he has authority, and will engage to open the navigation of the Mississippi for the exportation of their produce on terms of mutual advantage, but that this privilege can never be extended to them while part of the United States." As the new federal government was presently to go into operation, it was time for the Continental Congress to be settling up its accounts. It appeared from the report of the committee on the estimate, that since the adoption XLVIII. CHAPTER of the peace establishment, commencing with 1784 and including the current year, the liabilities of the federal 1788. treasury, exclusive of the interest on the domestic debt, Aug. but including two installments of the French debt, amounted to $6,036,917, of which $3,168,442, or somewhat more than one half, had been actually met. Of this amount, only $1,880,000 had been paid in by the states. The balance had been obtained by three Dutch loans, amounting in the whole to $1,600,000, of which a fragment still remained unexpended, the greater part of it pledged to pay the Dutch interest for the two following years. The $2,868,475 of arrearages consisted of interest on the French debt, with two installments of the principal over-due, and the interest, also, on the small Spanish loan. Of the specie requisitions made since the peace, there still remained unpaid upward of three millions of dollars, more than sufficient to meet all outstanding liabilities for which specie was needed. None, therefore, was asked for the present year; but $1,700,000 were called for in indents, to meet the interest on the domestic debt. Even these payments in indents were greatly be. hindhand; out of more than five millions heretofore demanded, not two millions had been paid, whence resulted a large arrear also of interest on the domestic debt. It appeared from reports of other committees that the accounts of the late quarter-master, commissary, clothing, marine, and hospital departments, had either been settled by the commissioners appointed for that purpose, or were in a fair way to be so. The accounts of the late loan-offices had been settled only in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, and Maryland. The papers of the first Virginia loan-office were lost. In South Carolina and Georgia, the loan-office proceeds had been. appropriated to state use. Except from New York, New XLVIII. Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Georgia, no returns CHAPTER had been received from the commissioners appointed to settle with the states. The committee on this subject 1788. complained of a great mass of unliquidated accounts, "showing many strong marks of want of responsibility or attention in former transactions respecting the public treasure." Out of two millions and upward advanced to the secret committee for foreign affairs prior to August, 1777, a considerable part remained to be accounted for. Contracts had been made, it was supposed, by individual members of that committee, who had neglected to report. The expenditure of a full third of the money borrowed abroad remained also unexplained. mar. The military force of the confederacy consisted of about six hundred men, commanded by Brigadier-general HarTwo companies of artillery had been formed out of the recruits enlisted during the late alarm in Massachusetts, one of which was stationed at Springfield, and the other at West Point. The stations on the frontier were Pittsburg; Fort McIntosh, on Beaver Creek; Fort Franklin, on French Creek, near the old post of Venango, about half way from Pittsburg to Lake Erie; Fort Harmar, at the mouth of the Muskingum; Fort Steuben, at the falls of the Ohio, opposite Louisville; and Fort Vincennes, on the Wabash. Oswego, Niagara, indeed, all the posts on the great lakes, still remained in the hands of the British. The principal arsenals were at Springfield, West Point, and Philadelphia; but there were temporary deposits of ordnance, arms, and stores at Providence, New London, the Mohawk River, Manchester in Virginia, opposite Richmond, and Charleston in South Carolina. The Canadian refugees, the remains of Hazen's regiment, were still a source of expense; though lately settled near Lake Champlain, on lands granted to III-M M |