lar land office at Nashborough, and in other ways
advance the interests of the settlers. He was completely successful in
his mission. The Cumberland settlements were included in a new county,
called Davidson [Footnote: In honor of General Wm. Davidson, a very
gallant and patriotic soldier of North Carolina during the Revolutionary
war. The county government was established in October, 1783.]; and an
Inferior Court of Pleas and Common Sessions, vested by the act with
extraordinary powers, was established at Nashborough. The four justices
of the new court had all been Triers of the old committee, and the
scheme of government was practically not very greatly changed, although
now resting on an indisputably legal basis. The Cumberland settlers had
for years acted as an independent, law-abiding, and orderly
commonwealth, and the Court of Triers had shown great firmness and
wisdom. It spoke well for the people that they had been able to
establish such a government, in which the majority ruled, while the
rights of each individual were secured. Robertson deserves the chief
credit as both civil and military leader. The committee of which he was
a member, had seen that justice was done between man and man, had
provided for defense against the outside foe, and had striven to prevent
any wrongs being done to neutral or allied powers. When they became
magistrates of a county of North Carolina they continued to act on the
lines they had already marked out. The increase of population had
brought an increase of wealth. The settlers were still frontiersmen,
clad in buckskin or homespun, with rawhide moccasins, living in
log-cabins, and sleeping under bearskins on beds made of buffalo hides;
but as soon as they ventured to live on their clearings the ground was
better tilled, corn became abundant, and cattle and hogs increased as
the game diminished. Nashborough began to look more like an ordinary
little border town. [Footnote: The justices built a court-house and jail
of hewed logs, the former eighteen feet square, with a lean-to or shed
of twelve feet on one side. The contracts for building were let out at
vendue to the lowest bidder.]

Correspondence with the Spaniards.

During this year Robertson carried on some correspondence with the
Spanish governor at New Orleans, Don Estevan Miro. This was the
beginning of intercourse between the western settlers and the Spanish
officers, an intercourse which was absolutely necessary, thoug