152 The Winning of the West 



rented to farmers, with the idea that each farmer 

 should receive ten cows and calves to start with; 

 a proposition which was of course helpless, as the 

 pioneers would not lease lands when it was so easy 

 to obtain freeholds. In his letters, Hart mentioned 

 cheerfully that though he was sixty-three years old 

 he was just as well able to carry on his manu- 

 facturing business, and, on occasion, to leave it, 

 and play pioneer, as he ever had been, remarking 

 that he "never would be satisfied in the world while 

 new countries could be found," and that his in- 

 tention, now that he had moved to Kentucky, was 

 to push the mercantile business as long as the In- 

 dian war continued and money was plenty, and 

 when that failed, to turn his attention to farming 

 and to divide up those of his lands he could not 

 till himself, to be rented by others. 21 



This letter to Blount shows, by the way, as was 

 shown by Madison's correspondent from Kentucky, 

 that the Indian war, scourge though it was to the 

 frontiersmen as a whole, brought some attendant 

 benefits in its wake by putting a stimulus on the 

 trade of the merchants and bringing ready money 

 into the country. It must not be forgotten, how- 

 ever, that men like Hart and Blount, though in 

 some ways they were benefited by the war, were in 

 other ways very mucfi injured, and that, moreover, 

 they consistently strove to do justice to the Indians 

 and to put a stop to hostilities. 



In his letters Colonel Hart betrays a hearty, 



21 Blount MSS., Thomas Hart to Blount, Dec. 23, 1793- 



