“How long will America submit to the operation of paying a heavy degrading tribute to a Spanish officer for a license (in his power even to deny) to proceed to sea with their vessels and produce and under restrictions of making such vessels Spanish bottoms * * *? If they wish to export their produce they must not only make use of the most humble solicitations but they are compelled besides to pay a very high duty for the permission of sailing out of the Mississippi under the colors of a foreign nation at war with our allies. How degrading such restrictions! How humiliating to an American!” In the same issue appeared certain resolutions of the Lexington Democratic Society: “* * * Resolved that the free and undisturbed use and navigation of the river, Mississippi, is the natural right of the Citizens of this Commonwealth; and is inalienable except with the soil; and that neither time, tyranny nor prescription on the one side nor acquiescence, weakness or non-use on the other can ever sanctify the abuse of this right.” Again this society on November 11, 1793, published in the Gazette an address giving its plan for forcing this issue: “* * * It will be proper to make an attempt in a peaceable manner to go with an American bottom properly registered and cleared into the sea through the channel of the Mississippi, that we may either procure an immediate acknowledgment of our right from the Spaniards or if they obstruct us in the enjoyment of that right, that we may be able to lay before the Federal Government such unequivocal proofs of their having done so, that they will be compelled to say whether they will abandon or protect the inhabitants of the Western Country.”