[Footnote: Green's "Spanish Conspiracy,"
p. 74.] One of his fellow Kentuckians, writing about him at this time,
remarks: "Clark is playing hell...eternally drunk and yet full of
design. I told him he would be hanged. He laughed, and said he would
take refuge among the Indians." [Footnote: Va. State Papers, IV., 202,
condensed.]
Public disavowal of Clark's Actions.
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.
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