St. Clair and Wayne 89 



were mixed with the greed for untilled prairie and 

 unfelled forest, and the fierce longing for blood. 

 Throughout our history as a nation, as long as we 

 had a frontier, there was always a class of frontiers- 

 men for whom an Indian war meant the chance 

 to acquire wealth at the expense of the government : 

 and on the Ohio in 1792 and '93 there were plenty 

 of men who, in the event of a campaign, hoped to 

 make profit out of the goods, horses, and cattle they 

 supplied the soldiers. One of Madison's Kentucky 

 friends wrote him with rather startling frankness 

 that the welfare of the new State hinged on the 

 advent of an army to assail the Indians, first, because 

 of the defence it would give the settlers, and, sec- 

 ondly, because it would be the chief means for in- 

 troducing into the country a sufficient quantity of 

 money for circulation. 20 Madison himself evidently 

 saw nothing out of the way in this twofold motive 

 qf the frontiersmen for wishing the presence of an 

 army. In all the border communities there was a 

 lack of circulating medium, and an earnest desire 

 to obtain more by any expedient. 



Like many other frontiersmen, Madison's corre- 

 spondent indulged almost equally in complaints of 

 the Indian ravages, and in denunciations of the reg- 

 ular army which alone could put an end to them 

 and of the national party which sustained the 

 army. 21 



M State Dept. MSS., Madison Papers, Hubbard Taylor to 

 Madison, Jan. 3, 1782. 



21 Do., Taylor to Madison, April 16, 1792; May 8 and 17, 

 1792; May 23, 1793, etc. 



