Kentucky Gazette And General Advertiser

FROM THE WESTERN WORLD.

The Kentucky Spanish Association, Blount's Conspiracy, and General Miranda's Expedition.

No. XIII.

[Concluded.]

The agents of Wilkinson, Brown, Sebastian and Wallace, were then dispersed over Kentucky with the following subscription paper, to excite and inflame the minds of the people. Wallace carried it himself in person to Versailles, and is said to have spoken a lengthy harangue at the court-house in its favor; but his intentions being known, he did not procure a single signature.

To the President and Congress of the United States of America; the Remonstrance of the Subscribers, citizens of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sheweth:

That your remonstrants have observed with concern and indignation, the injuries and insults offered to the United States by the king of Great Britain. He has violated in important parts, that treaty of peace, the observance of which might have obliterated the remembrance of former injuries. He has by means of his agents, supplied arms, ammunition, clothing and provision to those merciless savages, who have so long ravaged the western frontier of these states. He has interposed, unsolicited, and negotiated truces for Portugal and Holland, with the piratical states in order to turn the rapine of those African Barbarians solely on the American commerce. His vessels of war, and the piratical vessels of his subjects, by his orders, in violation of the law of nations, have despoiled the commerce, and insulted the neutral flag of America. He has made no compensation for the property of citizens of these states, carried away by his troops contrary to treaty. And, that we might escape no species of injury which could be heaped on the weakest and most despicable of nations, he holds within the territory of the United States, in defiance of treaty and of right, posts fortified and garrisoned by his armies.

That these injuries and insults call loudly for redress, and that we will, to the utmost of our abilities and in any mode that can be devised, support the general government in the firmest and most effectual measures, to obtain full satisfaction for all our wrongs.

That your remonstrants, and the other inhabitants of the United States west of the Alleghany and Appalachian mountains are entitled by nature and stipulation to free and undisturbed navigation of the river Mississippi; and that from the year 1783, to this day, they have been uniformly prevented by the Spanish king from exercising that right. Your remonstrants have observed with concern, that the general government, whose duty it was to have preserved that right, have used no effectual measures for its attainment. That even their tardy and ineffectual negotiations, have been veiled with the most mysterious secrecy. That, that secrecy is a violation of the political rights of the citizen, as it declares that the people are unfit to be entrusted with important facts relative to their rights, and that their servants may retain from them the knowledge of these facts. Eight years are surely sufficient for the discussion of the most doubtful and disputable claim; the right to the navigation of the Mississippi admits neither of doubt or dispute. Your remonstrants, therefore, conceive that the negotiations on that subject have been unnecessarily lengthy, and they expect, that it be demanded categorically, of the Spanish king, whether he will acknowledge the right of the citizens of the United States to the free and uninterrupted navigation of the river Mississippi, and cause all obstructions, interruption and hindrance to the exercise of that right in future to be withdrawn and avoided, that immediate answer thereto be required; and that such answer be the final period of all negotiations upon this subject.

Your remonstrants further represent, that the encroachment of the Spaniards upon the Territory of the United States is a striking and melancholy proof of the situation to which our country will be reduced, if a tame policy should still continue to direct our councils.

Your remonstrants join their voice to that of their Fellow Citizens in the Atlantic States, calling for satisfaction for the injuries and insults offered to America, and they expect that such satisfaction shall extend to every injury and insult, done or offered, to any part of America by Great Britain and Spain; and as the detention of the Posts and the interruption to the navigation of the Mississippi, are injuries and insults of the greatest atrocity, and of the longest duration, they require the most particular attention to those subjects.

Your remonstrants declare, that it is the duty of the General Government to protect the Frontiers, and that the total want of protection, which is now experienced by every part of the Western Frontier is a grievance of the greatest magnitude and demands immediate redress.

We noticed in one of our late numbers, the name of Joseph Ballenger, a celebrated tool of Wilkinson. The following extract of a letter lately received from a most respectable character in Upper Louisiana, will afford additional information respecting him.

"I am strongly inclined to believe there are many persons in this territory, who, if they were not members of the Spanish Association, are well acquainted with all the circumstances of this conspiracy. A Mr. Charles Smith, of St. Genevieve (one of the firm of Bullitt and Smith, at the falls of the Ohio) told me in the presence of several gentlemen, he was knowing to the payment of a certain sum of money to Wilkinson, which had been transmitted to him from New-Orleans. either through him, Smith. or Mr. Bullitt his partner; the last of whom I suspect, must know the whole of this transaction."

"A certain Joseph Ballinger, of Kentucky, and one among the many agents which Wilkinson formerly had in his employment (after having been written to three times by General Wilkinson pressing him to come to St. Louis) arrived here some short time previous to his departure down the river; and Wilkinson immediately gave him a commission, and started him in company with his son, Lieutenant James B. Wilkinson, on an expedition up the Missouri. What is the object and what the destination of this party. is not known. Its destination is, however. said to be the confines of the Spanish Territory; a view of the intermediate country ; with orders to meet the General at New Orleans."

"Of this Ballinger (whose character is notorious all over Kentucky) it was said about eight or nine years ago, by Governor Greenup. to a Mr. Richard Caldwell, whilst on a surveying expedition on the waters of Licking river, Kentucky. that if Mr. Ballinger was called upon, he could divulge an important secret concerning Wilkinson:; but Governor Greenup did not inform him what that secret was. However, Caldwell says, he did not require an explanation; for at that day it was well known, that the important secret was the transfer of Kentucky to the Spanish government.—Ballinger was also employed by Wilkinson as supercargo, and had charge of his boats, in various voyages to and from Orleans."

The most suspicious circumstance regarding the secret embassies of Ballenger occurred about 1790 or 1791. We have repeatedly noticed that General Wilkinson was suspected of carrying on a treasonable correspondence with the several Indian nations north west of the Ohio, and we believe had Wayne lived, it would have been satisfactorily proved upon him. The incident to which we at present allude, was the rupture of the treaty which Anthony Gamelin was negotiating with the tribes and villages of the Wabash river, and with the Indians of the Miami village. Gamelin, who was a respectable inhabitant of Vincennes, was requested by the United States, to conclude, if possible, the treaty with those Indians. The villages of the Wabash appeared earnestly inclined to pacific measures; but refused to give a decisive answer until they consulted with the Indians of the Miami village. A messenger was accordingly dispatched to them by Gamelin, in order to bring them over likewise to terms of accommodation.—This messenger upon his arrival found Joseph Ballinger among them, who instantly upon learning the purport of his visit, set off for Kentucky. The chiefs of the Shawanese then held a consultation, the result of which was, that they would after four weeks, send an answer to Vincennes. But the promised answer was never sent. and in the course of only a few months afterwards, more than one hundred men were killed and wounded upon the Ohio and in the district of Kentucky.

Mr. Knox, then secretary of war, was fully convinced, from information which he received, that the attacks of the Indian tribes upon the Kentuckians, were the result of the machinations of certain individuals in the district; and even insinuates as much in the report which he drew up at the desire of General Washington.

"As an evidence (says the secretary) that the conduct of the hostile Indians has been occasioned by other motives than a claim relative to boundaries ; it is to be observed that their depredations have been principally upon the district of Kentucky, and the counties of Virginia, lying along the south side of the Ohio, a country to which they have no claim."

"It appears by respectable evidence, that from the year 1783, until the month of October, 1790, the time the United States commenced offensive operations against the said Indians, that on the Ohio, and the frontiers on the south side thereof, they killed about one thousand five hundred men, women and children; besides carrying off upwards of two thousand horses, and other property to the amount of fifty thousand dollars."

Although it is obvious that it was the interest of the Spanish conspirators, to encourage those depredations with the view of tiring out the patience of the citizens of Kentucky ; yet there was another source from which the Indians were also excited to hostilities, that we have not yet mentioned, and that was what is termed the North-west Company of Canada, the members of which have been much more inimical to the interest of western America, than even the Government of Great Britain. The intrigues of this company against the western citizens of the union would furnish of themselves materials for a large history. It is too, a melancholy fact, that a majority of the members of this association are citizens of the United States, who callous to every sense of patriotism, and feeling of nature, were in the habit during the Indian hostilities, of offering premiums for the scalps of their countrymen. Many are the hundreds of Kentucky scalps which have been purchased out of the mercantile coffers of Boston and New-York. The most eloquent and independent orator who ever rose in Congress, declared last session his entire indifference "about the fur trade, nor without reason ; for we believe the jealousy entertained by that savage company of hunters, for the western settlers of the union, has been one of the greatest causes of Kentucky bloodshed. It matters nothing to what nation the company belong, or by whom protected, whether by the British government, the United States, or General Wilkinson. An organized company of fur hunters will be always a banditti of the most ferocious savages, and will uniformly oppose civilization of every description. Could the North-west Company of Canada be annihilated, it would be a blessing both to Great Britain and the United States. Until this event takes place, the most barbarous cruelties may be expected to be committed upon the frontier settlers.

We have thought proper at present to make these few remarks upon the nature of this company, as the agents of it will be found to be no inactive promoters of the contemplated separation of the union.