Filson had about completed marking off the town and surveying the 800-acre boundary, when one day taking his rifle he wandered off into the wilderness looking for game. He had been gone about an hour, when several shots in rapid succession were heard. The men of the colony suspecting that he had been attacked by the Indians started into the woods but at John’s suggestion remained where they were on guard, while he alone, without a rifle, but wearing his girdle, went in the direction of the shooting.
In a half hour he returned, carrying the dead surveyor on his shoulders. He had found him still alive, though scalped and shot through the body in several places. He died shortly after telling John he had been assaulted by a dozen Shauanese.
They buried him under a great elm on the bank of the river, just beyond the boundary of the town-site; the name of which was changed to Cincinnati a short time after his death.
John and David spent all of January and February working for the town company. When the preliminary work was completed they were paid off and with most of the men who had come with them from Lee’s Town, started for home in their canoes.
On the sixth of March at the mouth of the Kentucky river they came upon Wilkinson’s flotilla of five large batteaux loaded with tobacco and produce consigned to [pg 211] the Spanish Intendant at New Orleans. The boats were temporarily delayed because they had not procured a sufficient guard for the voyage.
The General, seeing John Campbell and David Clark, both of whom he knew, called them into his cabin and suggested that they and their companions act as guard of the flotilla, promising to pay John, whom he had noticed acted as leader of the party $12.00 per month in specie and the men $10.00 for the trip.
This offer John declined as did the other men at his suggestion. But when General Wilkinson, knowing John’s sentiments, explained that none of them because of the employment were expected to adopt his views upon treaty relations with Spain and had nothing to do but guard the cargo from Indians and river pirates; and also learning that Wilkinson was only going as far as Louisville, at the request of the others he accepted the employment.
General Wilkinson insisted that John and David share his cabin to Louisville and occupy it the rest of the voyage, which was the custom of the captain of the guard.
Floating down the broad river with little to do; the General, to gauge the strength of John’s character, asked him many questions and by flattery and argument sought to make him compromise the views he had expressed. In part he said:
“I was much surprised by your speech. It showed a knowledge of history and the political situation confronting this district which in one of your age and experience is remarkable. Your manner was earnest, your argument plausible and at first blush, convincing; but you are wrong. Disregarding the question of policy, which is rarely done and then usually regretted; saying nothing [pg 212] of the District’s commercial salvation, which to a settler should be his first great law; without compromise of honor or conscience my better judgment advises that Kentucky is entitled to state sovereignty. Virginia east of the Alleghanies is as distant, knows nothing and cares less for our wants, has no more right to tax us, to grant away lands in Kentucky and exercise other rights of sovereignty over the District than had King George and his ministers to exercise similar power over the colonies. What is vital to Kentucky does not interest Tidewater, Virginia, except as one is interested in the other as a competitor. That section naturally wishes to maintain its monopoly of commerce with the District, to be the only outlet for all we produce; therefore it opposes a southern and independent commercial outlet by way of the Mississippi. Again they grumble when called upon to help protect us from Indian raids, or at being taxed for such a purpose and refuse to furnish soldiers and arms for our protection. General George Rogers Clark, whose loyalty to the Union has never been questioned, expressed my point in his epigrammatic plea to the Virginia Assembly. ‘That a country which they did not think worth defending was not worth claiming.’ You concede that Kentucky should be carved off as an independent state from Virginia. Now we begin to differ. You are dramatically violent in declamation though not convincing in argument, that it should be a part of the Union; and that a majority of the states shall fix its commercial policies and regulate by treaty or contract, commercial relations with a foreign power, Spain for instance; and thus obtain free navigation of the Mississippi; which can be done in no other way and is vital to our commercial prosperity. If this right, which it seems is inherent as a law of necessity, is opposed by [pg 213] the other states from a selfish commercial policy or as inexpedient from a governmental policy such as Jay suggests; then the independent state, as is Kentucky’s case, has a right to withdraw from the confederacy and make such treaties with foreign powers as will preserve her commercially.