is Company. Likewise under Murray's control.
But although the "Ouabache Company," of which Dunmore was a
leading member, was initiated as early as May 16, 1774, the
purchase of the territory was not formally effected until October
18, 1775--too late to benefit Dunmore, then deeply embroiled in
the preliminaries to the Revolution. Under the cover of his
agent's name, it is believed, Dunmore, with his "passion for land
and fees," illegally entered tracts aggregating thousands of
acres of land surveyed by the royal surveyors in the summer of
1774 for Dr. John Connolly. Early in this same year, Patrick
Henry, who, as already pointed out, had entered large tracts in
Kentucky in violation of Virginia's treaty obligations with the
Cherokees, united with William Byrd 3d, John Page, Ralph Wormley,
Samuel Overton, and William Christian, in the effort to purchase
from the Cherokees a tract of land west of Donelson's line, being
firmly persuaded of the validity of the Camden-Yorke opinion.
Their agent, William Kenedy, considerably later in the year, went
on a mission to the Cherokee towns, and upon his return reported
that the Indians might be induced to sell. When it became known
that Judge Henderson had organized the Transylvania Company and
anticipated Patrick Henry and his associates, Colonel Arthur
Campbell, as he himself states, applied to several of the
partners of the Transylvania Company on behalf of Patrick Henry,
requesting that Henry be taken in as a partner. It was afterward
stated, as commonly understood among the Transylvania
proprietors, that both Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson desired
to become members of the company; but that Colonel Richard
Henderson was instrumental in preventing their admission "lest
they should supplant the Colonel [Henderson] as the guiding
spirit of the company."

Fully informed by Preston's elaborate communication on the
gravity of the situation, Dunmore acted energetically, though
tardily, to prevent the execution of Henderson's designs. On
March 21st Dunmore sent flying through the back country a
proclamation, demanding the immediate relinquishment of the
territory by "one Richard Henderson and other disorderly persons,
his associates," and "in case of refusal, and of violently
detaining such possession, that he or they be immediately fined
and imprisoned. This proclamation, says a peppery old chronicler,
may well rank with the one excepting those arch traitors and
rebels, Samuel