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as he ran up the bluff. He snatched a handful of hickory leaves and stuffed in the wound, and made his way to Mr. Chapman's. The ball passed clear through him, just missing his heart. The doctor drew a silk handkerchief through the orifice, dressed it, and Mr. Chapman nursed him until he got well. Drake's creek was named after him.

The last Indian incursion into Kentucky, McDonald describes thus:

"In the course of the summer of 1793, the spies who had been down the Ohio, below Limestone, discovered where a party of about twenty Indians had crossed the Ohio, and sunk their canoes in the mouth of Holt's creek. The sinking of their canoes, and concealing them, was evidence of the intention of the Indians to re-cross the Ohio at the same place. When Kenton received this intelligence, he dispatched a messenger to Bourbon county, to apprise them that the Indians had crossed the Ohio, and had taken that direction; while he forthwith collected a small party of choice spirits, whom he could depend upon in cases of emergency. Among them was Cornelius Washburn, who had the cunning of a fox for ambuscading, and the daring of a lion for encountering. With this party, Kenton crossed the Ohio, at Limestone, and proceeded down to opposite the mouth of Holt's creek, where the Indian canoes lay concealed. Here his party lay in ambush four days, before they saw or heard anything of the Indians. On the fourth day of their ambuscade, they observed three Indians come down the bank, and drive six horses into the river. The horses swam over. The Indians then raised one of their canoes they had sunk, and crossed over. When the Indians came near the shore, Kenton discovered, that of the three men in the canoe, one was a white man. As he thought the white man was probably a prisoner, he ordered his men to fire alone at the Indians, and save the white man. His men fired; the two Indians fell. The headway which the canoe had, ran it upon the shore; the white man in the canoe picked up his gun, and as Kenton ran down to the water's edge, to receive the man, he snapped his gun at the whites. Kenton then ordered his men to kill him. He was immediately shot. About three or four hours afterward, on the same day, two more Indians, and another white man, came to the river, and drove in five horses. The horses swam over; and the Indians raised another of their sunk canoes, and followed the horses across the Ohio. As soon as the canoe touched the shore with the Indians, Kenton's men fired upon them and killed them all. The white man who was with this party of Indians had his ears cut, his nose bored, and all the marks which distinguish the Indians. Kenton and his men still kept up the ambuscade, knowing there were still more Indians, and one canoe behind. Some time in the night, the main body of the Indians came to the place where their canoes were sunk, and hooted like owls; but not receiving any answer, they began to think all was not right. The Indians were as vigilant as weasels. The two parties who had been killed, the main body expected to find encamped on the other side of the Ohio; and as no an

The

swer was given to their hooting, which was doubtless agreed upon as a countersign, one of the Indians ventured to swim the river to reconnoiter, and discover what had become of their friends. The Indian who swam the river, must have discovered the ambuscade. He went upon a high hill, or knob, which was immediately in Kenton's rear, and gave three long and loud yells; after which he informed his friends that they must immediately make their escape, as there was a party of whites waylaying them. Kenton had several men who understood the Indian language. Not many minutes after the Indian on the hill had warned his companions of their danger, the Bourbon militia came up. It being dark, the Indians broke and ran, leaving about thirty horses, which they had stolen from about Bourbon. next morning, some attempts were made to pursue the savages; but they had scattered and straggled off in such small parties, that the pursuit was abandoned, and Kenton and his party returned home, without the affair making any more noise or eclat than would have taken place on the return of a party from a common hunting tour. Although Kenton and his party did not succeed as well as they could wish, or their friends expected, yet the Indians were completely foiled and defeated in their object; six of them were killed, and all the horses they had stolen were retaken, and the remainder of the Indians scattered, to return home in small squads. This was the last inroad the Indians made in Kentucky; from henceforward the settlers lived free from all alarms."

In the session of 1795, the Legislature passed an act divesting the Court of Appeals of original jurisdiction in land cases, and established six district courts; one each at Washington, Paris, Lexington, Frankfort, Danville, and Bardstown. The court of Oyer and Terminer was superseded by these. They were held twice a year by two judges; their jurisdiction embracing all matters at common law or in chancery arising within their districts, except for assault and battery, for slander, and for actions for less than fifty pounds. At the next session, a court of quarter sessions in each county, to be composed of three justices to be appointed for the purpose, was provided for. A third act reconstructed the county courts, the judges of which, like the judges of the quarter sessions, were legislated out of office by repealing the law of their creation. This dangerous precedent of assuming, by an indirection, control of the inferior courts by the Legislature, occasioned severe comment; and afterward became, in the history of the State, the cause of violent and embittered controversy, in its application to the Court of Appeals. The civil list at this period was in accordance with the economic spirit of the times, the habits of life, and the enhanced value of money. The salary of the governor was one thousand dollars per annum; of the appellate judges, six hundred and sixty-six; of the secretary of state, treasurer, auditor, and attorney-general, three hundred and thirty-three dollars each. The number of representatives in the General Assembly was fortytwo, as follows: Bourbon, five; Clark, two; Fayette, six; Green, one; Hardin, one; Harrison, one; Jefferson, two; Logan, one; Lincoln, three; Mercer, three; Madison, three; Mason, three; Nelson, three; Shelby, one; Scott, two; Washington, two, and Woodford, three.

In 1795, a treaty was made at Greenville, Ohio, with the Northern Indians, which established comparative peace for many years afterward, and put an end for all future time to Indian invasions of Kentucky. The next year a similar treaty was made with the Southern Indians, with much the same results. On the auspicious events coincident, Butler writes: 2

"These pacific measures, so important to the prosperity of the one party, and the existence of the other, were most essentially promoted by the British treaty concluded on the 19th of November, 1794, and the equally important treaty with Spain, agreed to on the 17th of October, 1795.

"In regard to the British treaty, which convulsed this country more than any measure since the Revolution, and which required all the weight of Washington's great and beloved name to give it the force of law, no section of the country was more deeply interested than Kentucky; yet perhaps in no part of the Union was it more obnoxious. Its whole contents encountered the strong prepossession of the Whigs against everything British; and this feeling seems to have prevailed in greater bitterness among the people of the Southern States (possibly from more intense sufferings in the Revolutionary war) than in any other portion of the Union, on account of their I Marshall, Vol. II., p. 55.

2 Butler, p. 242.

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sympathies with France. Yet now, when the passions which agitated the country so deeply, and spread the roots of party so widely, have subsided, the award of sober history must be, that the British treaty was dictated by the soundest interests of this young and growing country. What else saved our infant institutions from the dangerous ordeal of war? What restored the Western posts, the pledges of Western tranquillity, but this much-abused convention? The military establishments of the British upon the Western frontiers were to be surrendered before the 1st day of June, 1796. Further than this, Kentucky was not particularly interested; but it is due to the reputation of the immortal father of his country, and the statesmen of Kentucky who supported his administration in this obnoxious measure, to mention that Mr. Jay informed the president, in a private letter, that 'to do more was impossible; further concessions on the part of England could not be obtained.'1 Fortunate was it for the new Union and young institutions of the infant republic, that they were allowed by this treaty time to obtain root, and to fortify themselves in the national sympathies and confidence."

The other treaty, with Spain, referred to, was of not less importance in its immediate bearings on the future of the Commonwealth, affecting both the peace of society and the interests of commerce and trade. We have already adverted to the aborted overtures of Don Gardoqui, and the intrigues of Wilkinson and his associates. The failure of all previous efforts to seduce and to dissever Kentucky from allegiance to the Union and to the people of her own kindred did not utterly extinguish the hope of the Spaniards. Their dream of a western empire for more than a century placed in the magnificent vision, as the central feature, the dominion and control of the great Mississippi valley, and consequently of the navigation of the main artery of commerce which flowed through its center, and led to the ocean. Entranced by the grandeur and glory of this promise to the eye, they could not consent to abandon the hope of its realization. While open negotiations were pending, therefore, between the Federal capital and the Spanish court, they were protracted for indefinite years, with alternate encouragement and neglect upon the part of Spain, as her affairs with France or Great Britain promised a continuance of peace, or to involve her in the maelstrom of war which was devastating the central nations of Europe. Thomas Pinckney, our minister to London, was commissioned by Washington to proceed to Madrid, with plenary powers to negotiate terms of treaty, about the last of June, 1795. By the end of October, terms mutually satisfactory were agreed upon, which acknowledged our southern limits to the north of the thirty-first degree of latitude, and our western, to the middle of the Mississippi. Our right of the navigation of the Mississippi to the sea was conceded, and also the right of deposit at New Orleans for our produce for three years. 2 Yet behind these fair prospects of an amicable arrangement