The Governor of Virginia issued a proclamation disavowing all Clark’s acts. [Footnote:  Draper MSS.  Proclamation of Edmund Randolph, March 4, 1787.] A committee of the Kentucky Convention, which included the leaders of Kentucky’s political thought and life, examined into the matter, [Footnote:  State Dept.  MSS., No. 71, vol. ii., p. 503.  Report of Dec. 19, 1786.] and gave Clark’s version of the facts, but reprobated and disowned his course.  Some of the members of this Convention were afterwards identified with various separatist movements, and skirted the field of perilous intrigue with a foreign power; but they recognized the impossibility of countenancing such mere buccaneering lawlessness as Clark’s; and not only joined with their colleagues in denouncing it to the Virginia Government, but warned the latter that Clark’s habits were such as to render him unfit longer to be trusted with work of importance. [Footnote:  Green, p. 78.]

    Experience of a Cumberland Trader.

The rougher spirits, all along the border of course sympathized with Clark.  In this same year 1786 the goods and boats of a trader from the Cumberland district were seized and confiscated by the Spanish commandant at Natchez. [Footnote:  State Dept.  MSS., No. 124, vol. iii.  Papers transmitted by Blount, Hawkins, and Ashe, March 29, 1787, including deposition of Thomas Amis, Nov 13, 1786.  Letter from Fayettsville, Dec. 29, 1786, etc.] At first the Cumberland Indian-fighters determined to retaliate in kind, at no matter what cost; but the wiser among their leaders finally “persuaded them not to imitate their friends of Kentucky, and to wait patiently until some advice could be received from Congress.”  One of these wise leaders, a representative from the Cumberland district in the North Carolina legislature, in writing to the North Carolina delegates to the Continental Congress, after dwelling on the necessity of acquiring the right to the navigation of the Mississippi, added with sound common-sense:  “You may depend on our exertions to keep all things quiet, and we agree entirely with you that if our people are once let loose there will be no stopping them, and that acts of retaliation poison the mind and give a licentiousness to manners that can with great difficulty be restrained.”  Washington was right in his belief that in this business there was as much to be feared from the impetuous turbulence of the backwoodsmen as from the hostility of the Spaniards.

    Wrath over Jay’s Negotiations.

The news of Jay’s attempted negotiations with Gardoqui, distorted and twisted, arrived right on top of these troubles, and threw the already excited backwoods men into a frenzy.  There was never any real danger that Jay’s proposition would be adopted; but the Westerners did not know this.  In all the considerable settlements on the western waters, committees of correspondence were elected to remonstrate and petition Congress against any agreement to close the Mississippi. [Footnote:  Madison MSS.  Letter of Caleb Wallace, Nov. 12, 1787.] Even those who had no sympathy with the separatist movement warned Congress that if any such agreement were entered into it would probably entail the loss of the western country. [Footnote:  State Dept.  MSS., No. 56.  Symmes to the President of Congress, May 3, 1787.]