quite willing to be "detached," for a consideration. The fact
is, that at first the sense of national patriotism was weak,
west of the Alleghanies; the eighteenth century had closed
before efforts at separation from the East were commonly
regarded as treason. The interests of the Western people
apparently were centered in the south-flowing Mississippi; they
seemed to have at the time little in common with the East. So
long as Spain held the mouth of the river, many Western leaders
thought it not improper that the West should ally itself with
that power; when our government finally purchased the Spanish
claim, the Western men had no further complaint. See
Roosevelt's treatment of the Spanish conspiracy, in his
_Winning of the West_, III., ch. iii.--R. G. T.

[104] CHAPTER VI.

In the year 1774, the peace, which had subsisted with but little
violation since the treaty of 1765, received an interruption, which
checked for a while the emigration to the North Western frontier; and
involved its infant settlements in a war with the Indians. This result
has been attributed to various causes. Some have asserted that it had
its origin in the murder of some Indians on the Ohio river both above
and below Wheeling, in the spring of that year. Others suppose it to
have been produced by the instigation of British emissaries, and the
influence of Canadian traders.

That it was not caused by the murders at Captina, and opposite the
mouth of Yellow creek,[1] is fairly inferrible from the fact, that
several Indians had been previously murdered by the whites in a period
of the most profound tranquillity, without having led to a similar
issue; or even given rise to any act of retaliation, on the part of
the friends or countrymen of those, who had been thus murdered.

At different periods of time, between the peace of 1765, and the
renewal of hostilities in 1774, three Indians were unprovokedly
killed by John Ryan, on the Ohio, Monongahela and Cheat rivers. The
first who suffered from the unrestrained licentiousness of this
man, was an Indian of distinction in his tribe, and known by the name
of Capt. Peter; the other two were private warriors. And but that
Governor Dunmore, from the representations made to him, was induced
[105] to offer a reward for his apprehension, which caused him to
leave the country, Ryan would probably have continued to