140; Michaux, p.

77.] There was, however, much risk in this trade; for the demand for commodities at Natchez and New Orleans was uncertain, while the waters of the Gulf swarmed with British and French cruisers, always ready to pounce like pirates on the ships of neutral powers.

[Footnote: Clay MSS., W.H.Turner to Thomas Hart, Natchez, May 27, 1797.] Small Size of the Towns.
Natchez.
Yet the river trade was but the handmaid of frontier agriculture.

The Westerners were a farmer folk who lived on the clearings their own hands had made in the great woods, and who owned the land they tilled.

Towns were few and small.