Louisiana and Aaron Burr 153 



healthy love of life, and capacity to enjoy it, and 

 make the best of it, which fortunately exist in many 

 Kentucky and Tennessee families to this day. He 

 wanted money, but the reason he wanted it was to 

 use it in having a good time for himself and his 

 friends, writing: "I feel all the ardor and spirit for 

 business I did forty years ago, and see myself more 

 capable to conduct it. Oh, if my old friend Uncle 

 Jacob was but living and in this country, what 

 pleasure we should have in raking up money and 

 spending it with our friends!" and he closed by 

 earnestly entreating Blount and his family to come 

 to Kentucky, which he assured him was the finest 

 country in the world, with, moreover, "a very pleas- 

 ant society, for," said he, "I can say with truth that 

 the society of this place is equal, if not superior, 

 to any that can be found in any inland town in the 

 United States, for there is not a day that passes 

 over our heads but I can have half a dozen strange 

 gentlemen to dine with us, and they are from all 

 parts of the Union." 22 



The one overshadowing fact in the history of 

 Tennessee during Blount's term a's governor was 

 the Indian warfare. Hostilities with the Indians 

 were never ceasing, and, so far as Tennessee was 

 concerned, during these six years it was the Indians, 

 and not the whites who were habitually the aggres- 

 sors and wrongdoers. The Indian warfare in the 

 Territory during these years deserves some study 

 because it was typical of what occurred elsewhere. 



9S Blount MSS., Hart to Blount, Lexington, Feb. 15, 1795. 



