They even threatened that they would, if necessary, re-join the British dominions, and boasted that, if united to Canada, they would some day be able themselves to conquer the Atlantic Commonwealths.

[Footnote: State Dept.MSS.Reports of John Jay, No.

124, vol.iii., pp.

31, 37, 44, 48, 53, 56, etc.] Both the Federal and the Virginia authorities were much alarmed and angered, less at the insult to Spain than at the threat of establishing a separate government in the West.
The Government Authorities Disapprove.
From the close of the revolution the Virginian government had been worried by the separatist movements in Kentucky.

In 1784 two "stirrers-up of sedition" had been fined and imprisoned, and an adherent of the Virginian government, writing from Kentucky, mentioned that one of the worst effects of the Indian inroads was to confine the settlers to the stations, which were hot-beds of sedition and discord, besides excuses for indolence and rags.