This year was perhaps one of the most disastrous and dreadful in the annals of Kentucky. Although the settlements at the Falls were comparatively free from danger of attack, yet the older stations were suffering all the horrors of a bloody war. Several white men, impelled either by a love of the licentiousness and freedom from restraint of the savage life or by fear of punishment for their crimes, had united themselves with the Indians and constantly urged them against the Whites. The most celebrated of these were Girty and McKee, who had risen to a commanding rank among the red men, and their knowledge of the settlements enabled them to direct their new friends in all their expeditions. Previous to the great battle in which these renegadoes figured so largely, was the defeat and death of Captain Estill on Hinckston's Fork of Licking and also a bloody fight at or near Hoy's station. The great battle of the year however was at Blue Licks, and it was here that these renegadoes, whose names deserve and will receive perpetual execration, were successful. The result of this battle is well known to all readers of western history. Its effect upon the inhabitants of the new State was disheartening in the extreme. Gen. Clark, who was still at the Falls, seeing the necessity for rousing the people from their despondence and desirous of punishing the foe, proposed to a council of officers an expedition against the Indian towns on Miami and Scioto. And accordingly nearly one thousand men made rendezvous at the mouth of Licking and started for the towns. The Indians discovered their approach too soon for anything like a decisive battle, and they found only deserted towns and straggling Indians on their march. The result of this invasion however convinced both sides of the superiority of the Whites, and restored the drooping spirits in the settlements. After this expedition the country remained quiet during the year, nor did any considerable party of Indians ever again invade the State. In the winter of this year commenced the first of anything like intercourse between this part of the Ohio and New Orleans. Messrs. Tardiveau and Honore, the latter of whom resided in this city until within a few years, made the earliest trip from Brownsville to that port, and subsequently continued to make regular trips from Louisville to the French and Spanish ports on the Mississippi. Even previous to this, Col. Richard Taylor and his brother Hancock Taylor, had descended from Pittsburg to the mouth of the Yazoo; and Messrs. Gibson and Linn, in 1776, had made a trip from Pittsburg to New Orleans with a view to procuring military stores for the troops stationed at the former place. These gentlemen succeeded in their expedition, having obtained 156 kegs of powder, which arrived at the Falls in 1777, was carried around them by hand, and finally delivered at Pittsburg.