thick over his head, wading through creeks encumbered with ice, sleeping under rocks or in the hollow of trees, and finding only, at vast distances, some coarse refreshment or a fire to dry himself. Here too he was obliged to hear and join in the most violent abuse against himself, and to show implicit credence in the most absurd reports of what he had done against the American cause. Fatigue, cold, and exhaustion had nearly deprived him of the use of his limbs, when he came in view of those tremendous chasms by which the Potowmack pours its mighty torrents from the bosom of the Alleghany. As he was preparing to scale this formidable ridge, his companion deserted and robbed him, and he was left with a scanty remnant both of money and clothes. His resolution, however, did not forsake him; and, climbing these icy steeps in two days, wading through many dangerous water-courses, and finding rest only at one solitary hovel, he reached the opposite side, and seemed now to have only a portion of the great western plain to cross; when, in this moment of hoped deliverance, he suddenly encountered the party which had passed - him in pursuit, and gone on to Pittsburg, whence they were returning in despair when they exultingly beheld him. He represents his treatment now as barbarous and insulting in the extreme. They placed him on a wooden pack-saddle, tying his feet below the horse, on whose neck they placed little bells instead of a bridle. In this state they drove the animal for nearly three hundred miles across the steep and slippery precipices of the Alleghany; allowing the rider He firmly believes scarcely any food or refreshment. that they abstained from killing him only because they would thus have lost the reward offered by the Congress for his person. He was then carried to Philadelphia, where he was thrown into a damp cell of the house where the female convicts were confined. This gloomy dungeon, the rattling of the massy keys, the creaking of the numerous iron doors, and the screams of the unhappy damsels, nearly broke his spirits, while his health also seriously suffered. The members of Congress to whom he obtained access, behaved to him politely, but did not procure any alleviation of his sufferings. Congress, mean time, alarmed by the advance of the British army through the Jerseys, determined upon withdrawing to Baltimore, and carried their prisoners along with them. At Baltimore, and generally throughout Maryland, Smith found a much more friendly disposition; and, notwithstanding all the strictness of government, he contrived to escape on board a vessel in the Chesapeake. Though disappointed of meeting an English ship in the bay, he succeeded in reaching some friendly districts, and at length arrived at New York, then in the possession of the British. The severities and insults now recorded are stated by Smith to have been equally suffered by all who were suspected of any attachment to the cause of England. Even Chastellux,* with all his French * ii. 265. feelings, was astonished at the violence of that enmity which the Americans displayed against the British name. They were even mortified at the idea of speaking the language of those whom they deemed their oppressors; they studiously called it the American, and at one time, it is said, seriously started the idea of changing it, and in its stead adopting the Hebrew. CHAPTER X. SETTLEMENT OF THE WESTERN TERRITORY. Difficulties of crossing the Alleghany.-Daniel Boon.-Kentucky -Henderson.-Smith.-Dreadful Wars with the Indians.Settlement and Progress of Kentucky and Tennessee.-Of Ohio. -Indiana.-Illinois.-Michigan.-Mississippi.-Alabama. THE steep and continuous, though not extremely lofty range of the Alleghany, drawn like a belt along the whole back frontier of the eastern states, was long for them the boundary, not only of settlement, but even of knowledge and ideas, respecting the American continent. The discoveries which the French, from Canada and Louisiana, made of the regions on the Mississippi, sufficiently showed that the limited breadth which the first discoverers had assigned to it was wholly inadequate. It was long, probably, before they suspected the magnitude of what lay between these two grand lines of mountain and river;—that they enclosed a valley the most fertile, the most extensive, and the most finely-watered, that exists perhaps on the face of the globe. It was obvious, however, that on that side there must lie vast regions, to the possession of which the States, according to European ideas, had a natural claim. As, therefore, the eastern territory became comparatively filled up, and the spirit of emigration and enterprise was more and more kindled, their eyes were turned in that direction. The approach of this region, however, was so arduous, and a settlement in it beset with so many dangers, that only a few of the most ardent spirits attempted for some time to break through these barriers. Daniel Boon, at first a farmer and a hunter, afterwards a colonel, had the merit of first penetrating into, and exploring Kentucky. On the 1st May, 1769, he set out with five companions from his farm on the Yadkin, in North Carolina. He encountered very rugged roads, and very boisterous weather, in passing the mountain wilderness, till, on the 7th of June, he found himself on the banks of the Red River, flowing westward towards the Mississippi. Ascending an eminence, he saw, spread before him, the vast and beautiful forest-plain of Kentucky. Plunging into the bosom of this fruitful wilderness, he found it peopled with numberless wild animals, particularly buffaloes, in vast droves, which roamed over the plains, fearless of man, with whom they were yet unacquainted. The gun therefore afforded to the party an easy and ample subsistence. The forests presented a beautiful variety of scenery, being sometimes diversified with fruit-trees, partly in blossom, partly in bearing, and also with flowering shrubs. The Indians, however, were already in wait |