an office in that new county. When the county was created in 1785, he immediately applied to become the county lieutenant, but that office had apparently already been promised to someone else. Marshall applied for appointment as deputy lieutenant, and received the appointment. Although it is not known when Marshall began studying law, nor who his tutor was, he was practicing as early as 1785. In that year, he discovered a flaw in the original 1774 survey of the town of Frankfort. Due to the flaw, several choice acres of land in the northern part of Frankfort remained unclaimed, and Marshall quickly entered claims for them at the land office. Marshall also gained membership in the Kentucky Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge, a Danville-based society dedicated to disseminating information to farmers, mechanics, and other common citizens. He apparently was not accepted for membership in the Danville Political Club, although some sources report that he was accepted as a member after initially being rejected. Around 1786, Marshall gained public attention by expressing his suspicions about James Wilkinson's negotiations with Spain for free use of the Mississippi River and the possibility of Kentucky's secession from the United States to affiliate with Spanish possessions. For the remainder of his life, he vigorously opposed Wilkinson and anyone else he suspected of being involved with the Spanish Conspiracy. Marshall was a delegate to a 1787 convention in Danville to consider separating Kentucky from Virginia. There were, at that time, two primary positions with regard to the question of separation. The first favored an immediate separation with or without Virginia's consent, while the other favored waiting for legal approval from Virginia and the U.S. Congress. Marshall was among the latter group, and his uncle Thomas was the primary spokesman for this position. Biographer Anderson Chenault Quisenberry notes, "As to Humphrey Marshall's prominence in the Danville convention, or as to what notable part he acted there, nothing is said by the historians." In 1788, Marshall announced his candidacy to be a delegate to the Virginia Ratifying Convention. The proposed constitution was very unpopular in all parts of Kentucky except Jefferson County, but Marshall openly favored its ratification. Hoping to wreck Marshall's candidacy, a man named Jordan Harris charged that Marshall had, in a letter to John Crittenden, Sr., acknowledged himself to be a liar. In the pages of the Kentucky Gazette, Marshall called on Harris to publish