It is certain that they bore in mind at the time at least the possibility of separating outright from the Union and entering into a close alliance with Spain.

The moderate men, headed by those who were devoted to the national idea, strenuously opposed this plan; they triumphed and Kentucky merely sent a request to Virginia for an act of separation in accordance with the recommendations of Congress.

[Footnote: See Marshall and Green for this year.] The Kentucke Gazette.
It was in connection with these conventions that there appeared the first newspaper ever printed in this new west; the west which lay no longer among the Alleghanies, but beyond them.

It was a small weekly sheet called the _Kentucke Gazette_, and the first number appeared in August, 1787.

The editor and publisher was one John Bradford, who brought his printing press down the river on a flat-boat; and some of the type were cut out of dogwood.