Fowle's New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

Extract of a letter from one of the Virginia Delegates, dated Philadelphia December 10, 1785.

"Congress have alarmed us all, by taking cognizance of petitions from the Indiana, Vandalia, Illinois, and Ouabache companies. Our Delegates have opposed their proceedings warmly, but the committee, to whom the affair was referred, determined to proceed on it, and have reported favourably; tis said Congress have not confirmed any thing relative to it, but it is said they talk of cutting off Virginia at the Alleghany mountains: this is too serious to pass over, and must breed mischief, which it may not be in our view to describe the consequences of.

"Every body sees the necessity of making a government on our new settlements on this side of the Ohio, the moment when the people are able to support it; but to give all our country to private companies, is insufferable. You will no doubt see the fatal tendency of Congress thus cutting our country in pieces, at the instance of private jobbers, and land speculators. A great number of emissaries may be expected among the back people, to persuade them to this measure, but it is easy to see through their wicked design. The Pennsylvanians will have the chief of the back countries, if they succeed in their schemes, and they will bribe the back people, if possible, to second their designs."

N. B. However patriotick some of the writer's sentiments may be, it must astonish the honest politicians of the age, to learn, that what was criminated in 1774, as an abominable wickedness, can be advocated by the same set of men in 1785: For instance, that singular piece of land jobbing, the purchasing for a private company a great extent of country adjoining the Muscle Shoals. O tempora! O mores!"