he proclamation of 1763)
must fall, of course, in a few years, especially when those
Indians consent to our occupying the lands. Any person,
therefore, who neglects the present opportunity of hunting out
good lands, and in some measure marking out and distinguishing
them for his own, in order to keep others from settling them,
will never regain it." Washington had added greatly to his
holdings of bounty lands in the West by purchasing at trivial
prices the claims of many of the officers and soldiers. Three
years later we find him surveying extensive tracts along the Ohio
and the Great Kanawha, and, with the vision of the expansionist,
making large plans for the establishment of a colony to be seated
upon his own lands. Henderson, too, recognized the importance of
the great country west of the Appalachians. He agreed with the
opinion of Benjamin Franklin, who in 1756 called it "one of the
finest in North America for the extreme richness and fertility of
the land, the healthy temperature of the air and the mildness of
the climate, the plenty of hunting, fishing and fowling, the
facility of trade with the Indians and the vast convenience of
inland navigation or water carriage." Henderson therefore
proceeded to organize a land company for the purpose of acquiring
and colonizing a large domain in the West. This partnership,
which was entitled Richard Henderson and Company, was composed of
a few associates, including Richard Henderson, his uncle and
law-partner, John Williams, and, in all probability, their close
friends Thomas and Nathaniel Hart of Orange County, North
Carolina, immigrants from Hanover County, Virginia.

Seizing the opportunity presented just after the conclusion of
peace, the company engaged Daniel Boone as scout and surveyor. He
was instructed, while hunting and trapping on his own account, to
examine, with respect to their location and fertility, the lands
which he visited, and to report his findings upon his return. The
secret expedition must have been transacted with commendable
circumspection; for although in after years it became common
knowledge among his friends that he had acted as the company's
agent, Boone himself consistently refrained from betraying the
confidence of his employers. Upon a similar mission, Gist had
carefully concealed from the suspicious Indians the fact that he
carried a compass, which they wittily termed "land stealer"; and
Washington likewise imposed secrecy upon his land