The Indian Wars, 1784-1787 89 



is dwarfed when called princely; he could not sit 

 still and see an already great income double and 

 quadruple because of the mere growth in the value 

 of real estate in some teeming city. The chances 

 offered him by the fur trade were very uncertain. 

 If he lived in a sea-coast town, he might do some 

 thing with the clipper ships that ran to Europe and 

 China. If he lived elsewhere, his one chance of 

 acquiring great wealth, and his best chance to ac 

 quire even moderate wealth without long and plod 

 ding labor, was to speculate in wild land. 



Accordingly the audacious and enterprising busi 

 ness men who would nowadays go into speculation 

 in stocks, were then forced into speculation in land. 

 Sometimes as individuals, sometimes as large com 

 panies, they sought to procure wild lands on the 

 Wabash, the Ohio, the Cumberland, the Yazoo. In 

 addition to the ordinary methods of settlement by, 

 or purchase from private persons, they endeavored 

 to procure grants on favorable terms from the na 

 tional and State Legislatures, or even from the 

 Spanish government. They often made a regular 

 practice of buying the land rights which had accrued 

 in lieu of arrears of pay to different bodies of Con 

 tinental troops. They even at times purchased a 

 vague and clouded title from some Indian tribe. 

 As with most other speculative business investments, 

 the great land companies rarely realized for the 

 originators and investors anything like what was 

 expected; and the majority were absolute failures in 

 every sense. Nevertheless, a number of men made 



