tion facilities of the times were, however, entirely
inadequate to the needs of the country, and the lack of better means of
getting products to market was a serious impediment to internal
development. Tench Coxe wrote in 1792: "To a nation inhabiting a great
continent not yet traversed by artificial roads and canals, the rivers
of which above their natural navigation have hitherto been very little
improved, many of whose people are at this moment closely settled upon
lands, which actually sink from one-fifth to one-half of the value of
their crops in the mere charges of transporting them to seaport towns,
and others, of whose inhabitants cannot at present send their produce
to a seaport for its _whole_ value, _a thorough sense of the truth of
the position_ is a matter of _unequalled_ magnitude and importance."

Especially was communication between the Ohio Valley and the outside
world difficult and expensive. The natural outlet for the surplus of
this valley was the Mississippi River. During the Revolutionary War,
the Spanish government had given the people of the colonies the right
of free navigation of the river and a brisk trade had sprung up between
the western settlements and New Orleans, but in 1784 Spain had put an
end to this trade by withdrawing the right of free navigation. The
people of the West, enraged at being deprived of what they considered
their natural right, protested furiously and appealed to Congress for
protection, but their appeals were unavailing and the river remained
closed for more than a decade. The only market left to the western
farmers was the cities on the eastern coast. Peltry, ginseng and
whiskey were almost the only products that would pay their cost of
transportation to Philadelphia, and the proceeds derived from the sale
of these were sufficient to purchase only a few things of prime
necessity such as salt, gunpowder, and some indispensable articles of
iron. Even this small trade of the West was crippled when the new
government placed an excise tax on whiskey, and the resentment felt
against the federal authorities for their apparent disregard of the
economic interests of the western people blazed forth in open
rebellion.

The commercial isolation of the Ohio Valley ended, however, in 1795,
when the national government, spurred to action by the threats of
secession and clamor for protection coming from the western farmers,
secured a treaty with Spain opening the Mississippi River t