hould be requested to communicate to
the governor of Kentucky such part of the pending treaty between the
United States and Spain as he might deem advisable, and not inconsistent
with the course of the negotiation. The house of representatives also
passed a resolution, expressing their conviction that the president was
doing all in his power to bring about the negotiation as speedily as
possible.

The demagogues at the West, who hoped to profit by the excitement and
bring about hostilities with the Spaniards in Louisiana, refused to be
soothed by these assurances; and at a convention of a number of the
principal citizens of Kentucky, assembled at Lexington, the following
intemperate and indecorous resolutions were adopted:--

"That the general government, whose duty it is to put us in
possession of this right [free navigation of the Mississippi] have,
either through design or mistaken policy, adopted no effectual
measures for its attainment.

"That even the measures they have adopted have been uniformly
concealed from us, and veiled in mysterious secrecy.

"That civil liberty is prostituted, when the servants of the people
are suffered to tell their masters, that communications which they
may judge important may not be intrusted to them."

These resolutions concluded with a recommendation of county meetings, of
county committees of correspondence, and of a convention when it might
be judged expedient, to deliberate on the proper steps for the
attainment and security of their just rights.

No doubt the leaders in these movements felt indignant because an
expedition, which had been prepared in the West for an invasion of
Louisiana under the auspices of Genet, had been frustrated by the
vigilance of the president, who, when informed of the fact, had ordered
General Wayne, then in the Ohio country, to establish a military post at
an eligible place on the Ohio river, to stop any armed men who should be
going down that stream. This interference with what they had been taught
to believe were their inalienable rights was considered a very great
grievance.

In a private letter, on the tenth of August, Washington referred to
these movements in Kentucky, and said, after expressing a conviction
that there "must exist a predisposition among them to be dissatisfied:"
"The protection they receive, and the unwearied endeavors of the general
government to accomplish, by repeated and a