The independent spirit displayed by the Transylvania Company, and
Henderson's procedure in open defiance of the royal governors of
both North Carolina and Virginia, naturally aroused grave alarm
throughout these colonies and South Carolina. "This in my
Opinion," says Preston in a letter to George Washington (January
31, 1775), "will soon become a serious Affair, & highly deserves
the Attention of the Government. For it is certain that a vast
Number of People are preparing to go out and settle on this
Purchase; and if once they get fixed there, it will be next to
impossible to remove them or reduce them to Obedience; as they
are so far from the Seat of Government. Indeed it may be the
Cherokees will support them." Governor Martin of North Carolina,
already deeply disturbed in anticipation of the coming
revolutionary cataclysm, thundered in what was generally regarded
as a forcible-feeble proclamation (February 19, 1775) against
"Richard Henderson and his Confederates" in their "daring, unjust
and unwarrantable proceedings." In a letter to Dartmouth he
denounces "Henderson the famous invader" and dubs the
Transylvania Company "an infamous Company of land Pyrates."

Officials who were themselves eager for land naturally opposed
Henderson's plans. Lord Dunmore, who in 1774, as we have seen,
was heavily interested in the Wabash Land Company engineered by
William Murray, took the ground that the Wabash purchase was
valid under the Camden-Yorke decision. This is so stated in the
records of the Illinois Company. Likewise under Murray's control.
But although the "Ouabache Company," of which Dunmore was a
leading member, was initiated as early as May 16, 1774, the
purchase of the territory was not formally effected until October
18, 1775--too late to benefit Dunmore, then deeply embroiled in