Spanish intrigue.  He raised soldiers, and drew up a formal contract, entered into between the South Carolina Yazoo Company and their troops of the Yazoo Battalion—­over five hundred men in all, cavalry, artillery and infantry.  Each private was to receive two hundred and fifty acres of “stipendiary” lands and the officers in proportion, up to the Lieutenant Colonel, who was to receive six thousand.  Commissions were formally issued, and the positions of all the regular officers were filled, so that the invasion was on the point of taking place. [Footnote:  American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I., James O’Fallon to the President of the United States, Lexington, Sept. 25, 1790, etc., etc.] However, the Spanish authorities called the matter to the attention of the United States, and the Federal Government put a prompt stop to the movement. [Footnote:  Draper MSS., Spanish Documents, Carondelet to Alcudia, Jan. 1, 1794, and May 31, 1794.] O’Fallon was himself threatened with arrest by the Federal officers, and had to abandon his project. [Footnote:  Draper MSS., Clark and O’Fallon Papers, anonymous letter to James O’Fallon, Lexington, March 30, 1791, etc., etc.] He afterwards re-established his relations with the Government, and became one of Wayne’s correspondents; [Footnote:  Draper MSS., Wayne to O’Fallon, Sept. 16, 1793.] but he entered heartily into Clark’s plans for the expedition under Genet, and, like all the other participators in that wretched affair, became involved in broils with Clark and every one else. [Footnote:  Draper MSS., De Lemos to Carondelet, Dec. 23, 1793.]

    Revival of the Companies.

In 1795 the land companies, encouraged by the certainty that the United States would speedily take possession of the Yazoo territory, again sprang into life.  In that year four, the Georgia, the Georgia-Mississippi, the Tennessee, and the Upper Mississippi, companies obtained grants from the Georgia Legislature to a territory of over thirty millions of acres, for which they paid but five hundred thousand dollars, or less than two cents an acre.  Among the grantees were many men of note, congressmen, senators, even judges.  The grants were secured by the grossest corruption, every member of the Legislature who voted for them, with one exception, being a stockholder in some one of the companies, while the procuring of the cessions was undertaken by James Gunn, one of the two Georgia Senators.  The outcry against the transaction was so universal throughout the State that at the next session of the Legislature, in 1796, the acts were repealed and the grants rescinded.  This caused great confusion, as most of the original grantees had hastily sold out to third parties; the purchases being largely made in South Carolina and Massachusetts.  Efforts were made by the original South Carolina Yazoo Company to sue Georgia in the Federal Courts, which led to the adoption of the Constitutional provision forbidding such action.