Even nature turned hostile; a terrible drought shrunk up all the streams until they could not turn the grist-mills, while from the same cause the crops failed almost completely.

A hard winter followed, and many cattle and hogs died; so that the well-to-do were brought to the verge of bankruptcy and the poor suffered extreme privations, being forced to go fifty or sixty miles to purchase small quantities of meal and grain at exorbitant prices.

[Footnote: Clay MSS.

Letters of Jesse Benton, 1782 and '83.

See Appendix.] This distress at home inclined many people of means and ambition to try their fortunes in the west: while another and equally powerful motive was the desire to secure great tracts of virgin lands, for possession or speculation.