Before the ink was dry on the documents, Kentucky was trading down the great river of De Soto.
"The West must trade over the mountains," said the merchants of Philadelphia and Baltimore.
"The West will follow its rivers," answered Kentucky.
"Spain is Mistress of the Mississippi," said the Spanish King to John Jay, the American minister at Madrid.
In vain flatboatmen with wheat and corn said, "We are from Kentucky."
"What Kaintucke?" brayed the commandant at Natchez. "I know no Kaintucke. Spain own both side de river. I am ordered to seize all foreign vessel on de way to New Orleong."
Without the Spaniard the trip was sufficiently hazardous. Indians watched the shores. Pirates infested the bayous. Head winds made the frail craft unmanageable,—snags leered up like monsters to pierce and swallow. But every new settler enlarged the fields, and out of the virgin soil the log granaries were bursting.
"Carry away our grain, bring us merchandise," was the cry of expanding Kentucky.
But to escape the Indian was to fall into the hands of the Spaniard, and the Spaniard was little more than a legalised pirate.
Even the goods of the Frenchmen were seized with the warning, "Try it again and we'll send you to Brazil."