_John Blair_, of Virginia, was born in that state about 1731. He received a collegiate education, prepared for the law, and “in a very few years rose to the head of his profession.”[124] Pierce, in his notes on the men of the Convention, says: “Mr. Blair is one of the most respectable men in Virginia, both on account of his Family as well as fortune. He is one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of Virginia, and acknowledged to have a very extensive knowledge of the Laws. Mr. Blair is however no orator, but his good sense and most excellent principles compensate for other deficiencies.”[125] Blair took advantage of the excellent opportunity afforded by the formation of the new Constitution to profit by the rise of securities. He appears frequently in the fiscal transactions between the federal government and the Virginia loan office, of which a few illustrations need be given here. In March, 1791, he presented £577:16:7 in Virginia certificates toward the United States loan; and of these securities £249 had been invested by Blair himself in 1782. The remaining amount he had purchased on his own account.[126] In the same year an agent of Blair presented two small certificates which had evidently been purchased by the principal because they were issued to other parties in 1778.[127] In September of that year, Blair himself turned in nearly $10,000 worth of paper on the United States loan, of which a part was purchased and a part original issues to the holder.[128] _William Blount_, of North Carolina, was the son of Jacob Blount who died in 1789, “leaving a large estate.”[129] Of the younger Blount’s property interests in 1787 it is impossible to speak in detail. Very early after the establishment of the new government he was connected with land speculations on a large scale.[130] In 1790 he was appointed by Washington to the post of governor of the Territory South of the Ohio and it seems that he did not consider the employment of public office for personal gain as incompatible with the discharge of his administrative duties. In July, 1797, President Adams sent a message to Congress asserting that there was a conspiracy in the southwest to wrest New Orleans and the Floridas from the King of Spain and transfer them to the English crown, and adding that Blount, who was then a Senator from Tennessee, was implicated in the plot. The United States Senate immediately took action, and after inquiry expelled him by a vote of twenty-five to one on the charge of “high misdemeanor inconsistent with public trust and duty.” When the sergeant-at-arms went to arrest him and take him to Philadelphia for trial he refused to go; and in his refusal he was warmly supported by his friends, of whom he had a legion, for, as his biographer remarks, “He was a man of commanding presence, courtly yet simple manners, and having a large salary and large private means, he entertained lavishly at his house.”[131]