To prevent the incoming of unauthorized intruders, he issued a proclamation summoning all newly arrived persons to report at once to the local commandants, and, with a view of keeping the game for the use of the actual settlers, and also to prevent as far as possible fresh irritation being given the Indians, he forbade all hunting in the territory for hides or flesh save by the inhabitants proper.

[Footnote: Draper MSS.Wm.Clark Papers.
Proclamation, Vincennes, June 28, 1790.] Only an imperfect obedience was rendered either proclamation.
Thus the settlement of the Northwest was fairly begun, on a system hitherto untried.

The fates and the careers of all the mighty states which yet lay formless in the forest were in great measure determined by what was at this time done.

The nation had decreed that they should all have equal rights with the older States and with one another, and yet that they should remain forever inseparable from the Union; and above all, it had been settled that the bondman should be unknown within their borders.

Their founding represented the triumph of the principle of collective national action over the spirit of intense individualism displayed so commonly on the frontier.