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 the preliminaries to the Revolution. Under the cover of his agent's name, it is believed, Dunmore, with his "passion for land and fees," illegally entered tracts aggregating thousands of acres of land surveyed by the royal surveyors in the summer of 1774 for Dr. John Connolly. [166] Early in this same year, Patrick Henry, who, as already pointed out, had entered large tracts in Kentucky in violation of Virginia's treaty obligations with the Cherokees, united with William Byrd 3d, John Page, Ralph Wormley, Samuel Overton, and William Christian, in the effort to purchase from the Cherokees a tract of land west of Donelson's line, being firmly persuaded of the validity of the Camden-Yorke opinion. Their agent, William Kenedy, considerably later in the year, went on a mission to the Cherokee towns, and upon his return reported that the Indians might be induced to sell. When it became known that Judge Henderson had organized the Transylvania Company and anticipated Patrick Henry and his associates, Colonel Arthur Campbell, as he himself states, applied to several of the partners of the Transylvania Company on behalf of Patrick Henry, requesting that Henry be taken in as a partner. [167] It was afterward stated, as commonly understood among the Transylvania proprietors, that both Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson desired to become members of the company; but that Colonel Richard Henderson was instrumental in preventing their admission "lest they should supplant the Colonel [Henderson] as the guiding spirit of the company." [168]