John Williams to William Clark, New Orleans, Feb.

II, 1789; Girault to Do., July 26, 1788, from Natchez; Do.
to Do., Dec.

5, 1788; receipt of D.Brashear at Louisville, May 23, 1785.] All these traders naturally felt the Spanish control of the navigation, and the intermittent but always possible hostility of the Spanish officials, to be peculiarly irksome.

They were, as a rule, too shortsighted to see that the only permanent remedy for their troubles was their own absorption into a solid and powerful Union.

Therefore they were always ready either to join a movement against Spain, or else to join one which seemed to promise the acquisition of special privileges from Spain.
Robertson Talks of Disunion.
The separatist feeling, and the desire to sunder the West from the East, and join hands with Spain or Britain, were not confined to Kentucky.