,
large tracts of country between the Ohio and the Mississippi." In
shaping his plans Dunmore had the shrewd legal counsel of Patrick
Henry, who was equally intent upon making for himself a private
purchase from the Cherokees. It was Henry's legal opinion that
the Indiana purchase from the Six Nations by the Pennsylvania
traders at Fort Stanwix (November 5, 1768) was valid; and that
purchase by private individuals from the Indians gave full and
ample title. In consequence of these facts, William Murray, in
behalf of himself and his associates of the Illinois Land
Company, and on the strength of the Camden Yorke decision,
purchased two large tracts, on the Illinois and Ohio
respectively, from the Illinois Indians (July 5, 1773); and in
order to win the support of Dunmore, who was ambitious to make a
fortune in land speculation, organized a second company, the
Wabash (Ouabache) Land Company, with the governor as the chief
share-holder. In response to Murray's petition on behalf of the
Illinois Land Company, Dunmore (May, 1774) recommended it to Lord
Dartmouth, Secretary of State for the Colonies, and urged that it
be granted; and in a later letter he disingenuously disclaimed
any personal interest in the Illinois speculation.

The party of surveyors sent out under the direction of Colonel
William Preston, on the request of Washington and other leading
eastern men, in 1774 located lands covered by military grants on
the Ohio and in the Kentucky area for prominent Virginians,
including Washington, Patrick Henry, William Byrd, William
Preston, Arthur Campbell, William Fleming, and Andrew Lewis,
among others, and also a large tract for Dr. Connolly. Certain of
these grants fell within the Vandalia area; and in his reply
(September 10, 1774) to Dunmore's letter, Lord Dartmouth sternly
censured Dunmore for allowing these grants, and accused the white
settlers of having brought on, by such unwarrantable aggressions,
the war then raging with the Indians. This charge lay at the door
of Dunmore himself; and there is strong evidence that Dunmore
personally fomented the war, ostensibly in support of Virginia's
charter rights, but actually in order to further his own
speculative designs." Dunmore's agent, Dr. Connolly, heading a
party posing as Virginia militia, fired without provocation upon
a delegation of Shawanoe chiefs assembled at Fort Pitt (January,
1774). Taking advantage of the alarming situation created by the
conflict o