6 The Winning of the West 



startling clearness how little Robertson regarded 

 the Cumberland people and the Georgians as being 

 both, in the same nation ; he saw nothing strange in 

 one portion of the country concluding a firm peace 

 with an enemy who was about to devastate another 

 portion. 



Robertson was anxious to encourage immigra- 

 tion, and for this purpose he had done his best to 

 hurry forward the construction of a road between 

 the Holston and the Cumberland settlements. In 

 his letter to Martin he urged him to proclaim to 

 possible settlers the likelihood of peace, and guaran- 

 teed that the road would be ready before winter. It 

 was opened in the fall ; and parties of settlers began 

 to come in over it. To protect them, the district 

 from time to time raised strong guards of mounted 

 riflemen to patrol the road, as well as the neighbor- 

 hood of the settlements, and to convoy the immi- 

 grant companies. To defray the expenses of the 

 troops, the Cumberland court raised taxes. Exactly 

 as the Franklin people had taken peltries as the basis 

 for their currency, so those of the Cumberland, in 

 arranging for payment in kind, chose the necessaries 

 of life as the best medium of exchange. They en- 

 acted that the tax should be paid one-quarter in 

 corn, one-half in beef, pork, bear meat, and venison, 

 one-eighth in salt, and one-eighth in money. 6 It 

 was still as easy to shoot bear and deer as to raise 

 hogs and oxen. 



Robertson wrote several times to McGillivray, 



6 Ramsey, p. 504. 



