Reports of John Jay, No. 124, vol. iii., pp. 31, 37, 44, 48,
53, 56, etc.]
Both the Federal and the Virginia authorities were much alarmed and
angered, less at the insult to Spain than at the threat of establishing
a separate government in the West.
The Government Authorities Disapprove.
From the close of the revolution the Virginian government had been
worried by the separatist movements in Kentucky. In 1784 two
"stirrers-up of sedition" had been fined and imprisoned, and an adherent
of the Virginian government, writing from Kentucky, mentioned that one
of the worst effects of the Indian inroads was to confine the settlers
to the stations, which were hot-beds of sedition and discord, besides
excuses for indolence and rags. [Footnote: Va. State Papers, III., pp.
585, 589.] The people who distrusted the frontiersmen complained that
among them were many knaves and outlaws from every State in the Union,
who flew to the frontier as to a refuge; while even those who did not
share this distrust admitted that the fact that the people in Kentucky
came from many different States helped to make them discontented with
Virginia. [Footnote: Draper MSS. Clark Papers, Walter Darrell to William
Fleming, April 14, 1783.
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