If he lived in a sea-coast town, he might do something with the clipper ships that ran to Europe and China.

If he lived elsewhere, his one chance of acquiring great wealth, and his best chance to acquire even moderate wealth without long and plodding labor, was to speculate in wild land.
Land Speculators Accordingly the audacious and enterprising business men who would nowadays go into speculation in stocks, were then forced into speculation in land.

Sometimes as individuals, sometimes as large companies, they sought to procure wild lands on the Wabash, the Ohio, the Cumberland, the Yazoo.

In addition to the ordinary methods of settlement by, or purchase from private persons, they endeavored to procure grants on favorable terms from the national and State legislatures, or even from the Spanish government.

They often made a regular practice of buying the land rights which had accrued in lieu of arrears of pay to different bodies of Continental troops.