final touches of a lady-like education at some one of the State capitals not at the moment in the hands of the enemy—­such as Charleston or Philadelphia.  There the young ladies were taught dancing and music, for which, as well as for their frocks and “pink calamanco shoes,” their fathers paid enormous sums in depreciated Continental currency. [Footnote:  Clay MSS.  Account of Robert Morris with Miss Elizabeth Hart, during her residence in Philadelphia in 1780-81.  The account is so curious that I give it in full in the Appendix.]

Even the close of active hostilities, when the British were driven from the Southern States, brought at first but a slight betterment of condition to the straggling people.  There was no cash in the land, the paper currency was nearly worthless, every one was heavily in debt, and no one was able to collect what was owing to him.  There was much mob violence, and a general relaxation of the bonds of law and order.  Even nature turned hostile; a terrible drought shrunk up all the streams until they could not turn the grist-mills, while from the same cause the crops failed almost completely.  A hard winter followed, and many cattle and hogs died; so that the well-to-do were brought to the verge of bankruptcy and the poor suffered extreme privations, being forced to go fifty or sixty miles to purchase small quantities of meal and grain at exorbitant prices. [Footnote:  Clay MSS.  Letters of Jesse Benton, 1782 and ’83.  See Appendix.]

This distress at home inclined many people of means and ambition to try their fortunes in the west:  while another and equally powerful motive was the desire to secure great tracts of virgin lands, for possession or speculation.  Many distinguished soldiers had been rewarded by successive warrants for unoccupied land, which they entered wherever they chose, until they could claim thousands upon thousands of acres. [Footnote:  Thus Col.  Wm. Christian, for his services in Braddock’s and Dunmore’s wars and against the Cherokees, received many warrants; he visited Kentucky to enter them, 9,000 acres in all.  See “Life of Caleb Wallace,” by Wm. H. Whitsitt, Louisville, 1888.] Sometimes they sold these warrants to outsiders; but whether they remained in the hands of the original holders or not, they served as a great stimulus to the westward movement, and drew many of the representatives of the wealthiest and most influential families in the parent States to the lands on the farther side of the mountains.

At the close of the Revolution, however, the men from the sea-coast region formed but an insignificant portion of the western pioneers.  The country beyond the Alleghanies was first won and settled by the backwoodsmen themselves, acting under their own leaders, obeying their own desires, and following their own methods.  They were a marked and peculiar people.  The good and evil traits in their character were such as naturally belonged to a strong, harsh, and homely race, which,