“So does the devil!” thundered Sevier, enraged at Polcher’s making the Creek menace common property. “We’ll get nothing from Spain only as we pay dearly for it. And remember, there can be no danger from the Creeks except as Spain sets the mischief afoot. All who would be free and live in security follow me to the court-house. Messengers must be sent out; delegates must be elected and called here.”
“What’s yer plan?” hooted a tavern fellow.
“My plan is to form a Government of our own and to be admitted into the Union as a separate State!” retorted Sevier in a ringing voice.
The decent element raised a hoarse cheer, and faces heretofore gloomy became inspired. Polcher quickly warned:
“Vermont’s been trying to be admitted ever since 1776. We can’t stand on air, neither one thing nor another. Spain will protect us and give us justice. If she should fail, we could turn to and drive her into the gulf!”
“The time to drive her into the gulf is before you slip on her yoke!” shouted Sevier. “And, if we’re able to do that same thing, why seek her protection? To the court-house!”
The women gathered in knots to discuss the startling news. The men followed their old leader. Jackson remained outside the court-house, watching the scene. His experience with Kentuckians on the Ohio had taught him the feeble central Government was powerless to function in a crisis like this—and this because the thirteen States retained the mental attitude of the thirteen colonies.
Polcher’s advocacy of accepting the protection of Spain was not painfully repugnant to Jackson, no more than it was to some others west of the mountains, who believed themselves forsaken and left to shape their own destiny. When it hurt, it hurt pride, not a national spirit. He repudiated the idea because of an instinctive dislike to domination by any foreign power. His sense of Americanism was not shocked as Sevier’s was, for the union Polcher openly urged, and which John Tonpit was suspected of secretly promoting, simply meant a political affiliation and not the death of national ideals, the seeds of which were scarcely sown.
Jackson, however, firmly opposed the project, for his forebears had come to America to escape overlords. Then again common sense told him the law of compensation would decree that Spain’s protégés must pay Spain’s price.
Being in this frame of mind, he saw no reason why he should not play his luck by accepting Tonpit’s courteous demeanour at full face-value and profit by it to the extent of wooing his daughter. His last meeting with Tonpit before going to the Ohio country convinced him his suit was frowned upon. Now, with the father’s smile still soothing him, with a vivid picture of Elsie’s shy, backward glance, he had small liking for the court-house and its jumble of loud-voiced phillipics against Spain and North Carolina. The situation was localized in his estimation. And yet he hesitated, his loyalty to Sevier, whom he had known for only a few hours, holding him back.