Turning his troops from the original purpose, he
seized the goods of the Spanish traders at Post Vincennes as a
retaliation upon the Spanish, and prepared to descend upon New Orleans.
Congress was compelled to take strong measures for disbanding his
followers and making amends to Spain. A short time after, another
Kentuckian was at Vincennes organising men to drive out the Spanish
and make a settlement at Natchez, presumably inside the limits of
Georgia. "Ireland is a free country to what this will be when its
navigation is entirely shut," he wrote to the governor of Georgia in
unfolding his scheme. An emissary was sent through the Illinois French
settlements to describe the Spanish outrages on the lower Mississippi.
Seditious papers were circulating in Kentucky and in the revolutionary
State of Franklin. "In case we are not countenanced," said one of these
documents, "and succoured by the United States, our allegiance will
be thrown off and some other power applied to. Great Britain stands
ready with open arms to receive and support us." One adventurer assured
Gardoqui that fifty thousand men would be in arms in the western country
to get their commercial rights.
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