sk. This advice was based
on Franklin's usual principle of merely mercantile morality; but he was
writing to a people who stood in sore need of just the teaching he could
furnish and who would have done well to heed it. They were slow to learn
that while sober, debt-paying thrift, love of order, and industry, are
perhaps not the loftiest virtues and are certainly not in themselves all
sufficient, they yet form an indispensable foundation, the lack of which
is but ill supplied by other qualities even of a very noble kind.

Sevier, also in the year 1787, carried on a long correspondence with
Evan Shelby, whose adherence to the state of Franklin he much desired,
as the stout old fellow was a power not only among the frontiersmen but
with the Virginian and North Carolinian authorities likewise. Sevier
persuaded the Legislature to offer Shelby the position of chief
magistrate of Franklin, and pressed him to accept it, and throw in his
lot with the Westerners, instead of trying to serve men at a distance.
Shelby refused; but Sevier was bent upon being pleasant, and thanked
Shelby for at least being neutral, even though not actively friendly. In
another letter, however, when he had begun to suspect Shelby of positive
hostility, he warned him that no unfriendly interference would be
tolerated. [Footnote: Tennessee Hist. Soc. MSS. Letters of Sevier to Evan
Shelby, Feb. 11, May 20, May 30, and Aug. 12, 1787.]

Shelby could neither be placated nor intimidated. He regarded with equal
alarm and anger the loosening of the bands of authority and order among
the Franklin frontiersmen. He bitterly disapproved of their lawless
encroachments on the Indian lands, which he feared would cause a general
war with the savages. [Footnote: State Dept. MSS., No. 71. Evan Shelby
to General Russell, April 27, 1787. Beverly Randolph to Virginia
Delegates, June 2, 1787.] At the very time that Sevier was writing to
him, he was himself writing to the North Carolina Government, urging
them to send forward troops who would put down the rebellion by force,
and was requesting the Virginians to back up any such movement with
their militia. He urged that the insurrection threatened not only North
Carolina, but Virginia and the Federal Government itself; and in phrases
like those of the most advanced Federalist statesman, he urged the
Federal Government to interfere. The Governor of Virginia was inclined
to share his views, and forwarded his complaints and req