George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 6, 10th edition.

[33] Green Bay, and the Fox River, to the mouth of

Chap. XXVII.} 1766. Oct.

the Wisconsin.¹ The tract was thought to contain sixty-three millions of acres, the like of which could nowhere be found. Benjamin Franklin favored the enterprise which promised fortune to its undertakers, and to America some new security for a mild colonial Administration. It was the wish of Shelburne,² who loved to take counsel with the great philosopher on the interests of humanity, that the Valley of the Mississippi might be occupied by colonies enjoying English liberty. But the Board of Trade, to which Hillsborough had returned,³ insisted that emigrants to so remote regions would establish manufactures for themselves; and in the very heart of America, found a power, which distance must emancipate. They adhered, therefore, to the Proclamation of 1763, and to the range of the Alleghanies as the frontier of British settlements.

But the prohibition only set apart the Great Valley as the sanctuary of the unhappy, the adventurous, and the free; of those whom enterprise, or curiosity, or disgust at the forms of life in the old plantations, raised above royal edicts;⁴ of those who had nowhere else a home; or who would run all risks to take possession of the fine soil between the Alleghanies and the Ohio.⁵ The boundless West became the poor