THE WESTERN COUNTRY 263 



heed to their commands and help bear their burdens. 

 These putative subjects will, so soon as they feel them- 

 selves strong enough, without doubt follow the ex- 

 ample of the mother-colonies, and desire to be and be 

 as independent. And have they not as much right? 

 They are separated by extensive and impracticable 

 mountains, and their trading-interests will still more 

 set them apart. Plans are made already for the es- 

 tablishment of several towns in Kentucky. The Ohio- 

 Falls, or rapids, are mentioned as a particularly ad- 

 vantageous site.* This is not really a water-fall, but 

 only a place where the river forces through rocks and 

 shallows with such vehemence that laden vessels can- 

 not be taken through ; although with high water the 

 difficulty is not so great. The boats are here commonly 

 lightened and a part of the cargo sent forward a cer- 

 tain distance by land to be taken on again below the 

 falls. And so here, it is believed, there will arise of 

 itself a ware-house and trading-town for commodities 

 coming down the river. 



But many of these new colonists, even after they 

 have come half across America, find no abiding place 

 in Kentucky ; some of these restless people, I am told, 

 push on farther to the Illinois, the Wabash, and the 

 Mississippi, and there mingle with what still remains 

 of the French colonists. These incessant emigrations, 



* A detailed account in regard to the country, the rapids, 

 and the trade of the Ohio is to be found in Thomas Hutchins' 

 Topographical description of the river Ohio, Kenhawa, Sioto, 

 Cherokee, Wabash, Illinois, Mississippi &c. London 1778. 8. 

 He travelled through these parts before the war, under orders 

 from the British government, and his is the best and only 

 map + of that country. 



