en we take into account the
determined efforts of Spain and France to confine us to the land east of
the Alleghanies, and then to the land southeast of the Ohio, the
slavishness of Congress in instructing our commissioners to do whatever
France wished, and the readiness shown by one of the commissioners,
Franklin, to follow these instructions, it certainly looks as if there
would not even have been an effort made by us to get the northwestern
territory had we not already possessed it, thanks to Clark. As it was,
it was only owing to Jay's broad patriotism and stern determination that
our western boundaries were finally made so far-reaching. None of our
early diplomats did as much for the west as Jay, whom at one time the
whole west hated and reviled; Mann Butler, whose politics are generally
very sound, deserves especial credit for the justice he does the New
Yorker.

It is idle to talk of the conquest as being purely a Virginian affair.
It was conquered by Clark, a Virginian, with some scant help from
Virginia, but it was retained only owing to the power of the United
States and the patriotism of such northern statesmen as Jay, Adams, and
Franklin, the negotiators of the final treaty. Had Virginia alone been
in interest, Great Britain would not have even paid her claims the
compliment of listening to them. Virginia's share in the history of the
nation has ever been gallant and leading; but the Revolutionary war was
emphatically fought by Americans for America; no part could have won
without the help of the whole, and every victory was thus a victory for
all, in which all alike can take pride.]; he had clothed and paid his
soldiers with the spoils of his enemies; he had spent his own fortune as
carelessly as he had risked his life, and the only reward that he was
destined for many years to receive was the sword voted him by the
Legislature of Virginia. [Footnote: A probably truthful tradition
reports that when the Virginian commissioners offered Clark the sword,
the grim old fighter, smarting under the sense of his wrongs, threw it
indignantly from him, telling the envoys that he demanded from Virginia
his just rights and the promised reward of his services, not an empty
compliment.]

CHAPTER IV.

CONTINUANCE OF THE STRUGGLE IN KENTUCKY AND THE NORTHWEST, 1779-1781.

Clark's Conquests Benefit Kentucky.

Clark's successful campaigns against the Illinois towns and Vincennes,
besides giving the Americans a