Louisiana and Aaron Burr 151 



other prominent American, in public or private life, 

 was engaged. Neither Congress nor the States had 

 as yet seen the wisdom of allowing the land to be 

 sold only in small parcels to actual occupants, and 

 the favorite kind of speculation was the organization 

 of land companies. Of course there were other 

 kinds of business in which prominent men took part. 

 Sevier was interested not only in land, but in vari- 

 ous mercantile ventures of a more or less speculative 

 kind; he acted as an intermediary with the big im- 

 porters, who were willing to furnish some of the 

 stores with six months' credit if they could be guar- 

 anteed a settlement at the end of that time. 19 



One of the characteristics of all the leading fron- 

 tiersmen was not only the way in which they com- 

 bined business enterprises with their work as Gov- 

 ernment officials and as Indian fighters, but the 

 readiness with which they turned from one business 

 enterprise to another. One of Blount's Kentucky 

 correspondents, Thomas Hart, the grandfather of 

 Benton, in his letter to Blount shows these traits 

 in typical fashion. He was engaged in various land 

 speculations with Blount, 20 and was always writing 

 to him about locating land warrants, advertising 

 the same as required by law, and the like. He and 

 Blount held some tens of thousands of acres of 

 the Henderson claim, and Hart proposed that they 

 should lay it out in five-hundred-acre tracts, to be 



19 Do., David Alison to Blount, Oct. 16, 1791. 

 90 Clay MSS., Blount to Hart, Knoxville, February 9, 1794. 

 This was just as Hart was moving to Kentucky. 



