Tc 



obacco ariTiada 



Under \\ ilkinsoirs "system," fleets were made up at 

 Louisville. A resident of that town, in a letter published 

 in tlie Sew York Journal and Weekly Register, xMarch 5, 

 1789, wrote that in January a fleet of 25 large boats con- 

 trolled by Wilkinson started for New Orleans, freight- 

 ing ehiefly tobacco and flour. Some of the boats carried 

 3-pounders 



and all of them swivels, manned by 150 hands, 

 brave and well armed, to fight their way down 

 the Ohio and Mississippi into the gulph of 

 Mexico. (Wilkinson) has been very unjustly 

 censured, by the inconsiderate part of man- 

 kind, for having monopolized the Spanish 

 trade, but the more expanded mind acknowl- 

 edges, that to ]iis penetrating genius, Ken- 

 tucke stands indebted for having procured its 

 citizens a market . . . 



G 



olden tobacco 



Wilkinson's boast that he had opened the Mississippi 

 for the products of Kentucky was justified. Customs 

 records at New Orleans for 1790 showed that 250,000 

 pounds of tobacco had been registered in that port alone. 

 ( Most of it was grown in Kentucky. ) Other entries were 

 made at Natchez. An incalculable amount was smuggled 

 in or went to sea without benefit of customs permits. The 

 annual purchases by Spain amounted to a maximum of 

 two million pounds. And the prices paid were high. 

 Tobacco which had been selling for $2 per hundred- 

 weight in Kentuc-k\ brouglit $9.50 or $10 in Spanish coin 



31 



