The Indian Wars, 1784-1787 229 



graduate and a gentleman ; for many of the would- 

 be colonizers were needy ne'er-do-wells, who were 

 anxious either to borrow money, or else to secure 

 a promise of freedom from arrest for debt when they 

 should move to the new country. Morgan's plans 

 were on a magnificent scale. He wished a tract of 

 land as large as a principality on the west bank of 

 the Mississippi. This he proposed to people with 

 tens of thousands of settlers, whom he should gov 

 ern under the commission of the King of Spain. 

 Gardoqui entered into the plan with enthusiasm, but 

 obstacles and delays of all kinds were encountered, 

 and the dwindling outcome was the emigration of a 

 few families of frontiersmen, and the founding of 

 a squalid hamlet named after the Iberian capital. 46 

 Another adventurer who at this time proposed to 

 found a colony in Spanish territory was no less a 

 person than George Rogers Clark. Clark had in 

 dulged in something very like piracy at the expense 

 of Spanish subjects but eighteen months previously. 

 He was ready at any time to lead the Westerners 

 to the conquest of Louisiana ; and a few years later 

 he did his best to organize a freebooting expedition 

 against New Orleans in the name of the French 

 Revolutionary Government. But he was quite 

 willing to do his fighting on behalf of Spain, instead 

 of against her; for by this time he was savage with 

 anger and chagrin at the indifference and neglect 



49 Gardoqui MSS., Gardoqui to Morgan, Sept. 2, 1788. Mor 

 gan to Gardoqui, Aug. 30, 1788. Letters of Sept. 9, 1788, 

 Sept. 12, 1788; Gardoqui to Miro, Oct. 4, 1788, to Florida 

 Blanca, June 28, 1789. Letter to Gardoqui, Jan. 22, 1788. 



