208 The Winning of the West 



ally seen the letter, he was certainly cognizant of its 

 purport, and approved the movement which lay be 

 hind it. 19 One of his fellow Kentuckians, writing 

 about him at this time, remarks : "Clark is playing 

 hell . . . eternally drunk and yet full of design. 

 I told him he would be hanged. He laughed, and 

 said he would take refuge among the Indians." 20 



The Governor of Virginia issued a proclamation 

 disavowing all Clark's acts. 21 A committee of the 

 Kentucky Convention, which included the leaders 

 of Kentucky's political thought and life, examined 

 into the matter, 22 and gave Clark's version of the 

 facts, but reprobated and disowned his course. Some 

 of the members of this Convention were afterward 

 identified with various separatist movements, and 

 skirted the field of perilous intrigue with a foreign 

 power; but they recognized the impossibility of 

 countenancing such mere buccaneering lawlessness 

 as Clark's; and not only joined with their colleagues 

 in denouncing it to the Virginian Government, but 

 warned the latter that Clark's habits were such as 

 to render him unfit longer to be trusted with work 

 of importance. 23 



The rougher spirits all along the border of course 

 sympathized with Clark. In this same year 1786, 



" Green's "Spanish Conspiracy," p. 74. 



90 Va. State Papers, IV, 202, condensed. 



91 Draper MSS. Proclamation of Edmund Randolph, 

 March 4, 1787. 



88 State Dept. MSS., No. 71, Vol. II, p. 503. Report of Dec. 

 19, 1786. 

 83 Green, p. 78. 



