Adams and John Hancock, from the mercy of the
British monarch. In view of Dunmore's confidence in the validity
of the Camden-Yorke decision, it is noteworthy that no mention of
the royal proclamation of 1763 occurs in his broadside; and that
he bases his objection to the Transylvania purchase upon the
king's instructions that all vacant lands "within this colony" be
laid off in tracts, from one hundred to one thousand acres in
extent, and sold at public auction. This proclamation which was
enclosed, oddly enough, in a letter of official instructions to
Preston warning him not to survey any lands "beyond the line run
by Colonel Donaldson," proved utterly ineffective. At the same
time, Dunmore despatched a pointed letter to Oconostota,
Atta-kulla-kulla, Judge's Friend, and other Cherokee chieftains,
notifying them that the sale of the great tract of land below the
Kentucky was illegal and threatening them with the king's
displeasure if they did not repudiate the sale.

News of the plans which Henderson had already matured for
establishing an independent colony in the trans-Alleghany
wilderness, now ran like wild-fire through Virginia. In a letter
to George Washington (April 9, 1775), Preston ruefully says:
"Henderson I hear has made the Purchase & got a Conveyance of the
great and Valluable Country below the Kentucky from the
Cherokees. He and about 300 adventurers are gone out to take
Possession, who it is said intends to set up an independent
Government & form a Code of Laws for themselves. How this may be
I cant say, but I am affraid the steps taken by the Government
have been too late. Before the Purchase was made had the Governor
interfered it is believed the Indians would not have sold."

Meanwhile Judge Henderson, with strenuous energy, had begun to
erect a large stockaded fort according to plans of his own.
Captain James Harrod with forty-two men was stationed at the
settlement he had made the preceding year, having arrived there
before the McAfees started back to Virginia; and there were small
groups of settlers at Boiling Spring, six miles southeast of
Harrods settlement, and at St. Asaph's, a mile west of the
present Stanford. A representative government for Transylvania
was then planned. When the frank and gallant Floyd arrived at the
Transylvania Fort on May 3d, he "expressed great satisfaction,"
says Judge Henderson, "on being informed of the plan we proposed
for Legislation & sayd he must most heartily