an American officer without a safe conduct, procured the recommendation of the Spanish governor of St. Louis, as well as the commandant at Ste. Genevieve supported by the influence of the greater part of the citizens; for the purpose of obtaining this security. It was all in vain; Col. Clark peremptorily refused it, and intimated that he wished to hear no more such applications; he understood, he said, that M. Cerre was a "sensible man," and if he were innocent of the charge of inciting the Indians against the Americans, he need not be afraid of delivering himself up. Backwardness would only increase suspicion against him. Shortly after this expression of Clark's sentiments, M. Cerre, to whom they were no doubt communicated, repaired to Kaskaskia, and before visiting his family immediately waited on Col. Clark who informed him, that the crime with which he stood charged, was encouraging the Indians in their murders and devastations on our own frontiers. An enormity, continued Clark, whose perpetrators, it behooved every civilized people to punish, whenever they got such violators of the laws of honorable warfare within their power. To this accusation Mr. Cerre frankly replied, that he was a mere merchant, and had never been concerned in affairs of State beyond the interests of his business. In fine this eminent French merchant declared his willingness to meet the strictest enquiry into the only heinous charge against him. This was everything the American commander required; he then desired M. Cerre to retire into another room, while he sent for his accusers. They immediately attended followed by the greater part of the inhabitants. M. Cerre was summoned to confront them: the parties were told by Col. Clark that he had no disposition to condemn any man unheard; that the accused was now present, and he [Clark] was ready to do justice to the civilized world by punishing him, if guilty of inciting Indians to commit their enormities on helpless women and children. The accusers began to whisper to one another and retire until but one was left of six or seven at first. This person was asked for his proof of the charges against M. Cerre; but he had none to produce, and the French merchant was honorably acquitted, not more to his own satisfaction than to that of his neighbors and friends. M. Cerre delighted at the fair and generous treatment he had met with from Col. Clark, immediately took the oath of allegiance and became a "most valuable" friend to the American cause.

So successful was the management of Clark, that whether he

bribed or whether he punished, both methods were made conducive to the public interest. In this case, as in that of the inhabitants of Kaskaskia in general, he kept up an appearance of rigor for the purpose of enhancing the indulgence he wished and determined to employ ; reserve in favors was a common feature in his policy.

Post St. Vincents still continued to occupy the thoughts of Clark as a point of great importance to the safety of his present position, and to the extension of the Virginia dominion. "It was never," he says, "out of my mind." It had indeed occupied his thoughts, on his first descent of the Ohio river; and was only relinquished at that time, from his weakness. These early inclinations were renewed by his success at Kaskaskia; and he sent for M. Gibault, the Roman catholic priest of this village, as well as of St. Vincents.

This gentleman, who subsequently received the public thanks of Virginia for his distinguished services, had been steadily attached to the American cause. He readily gave Col. Clark every information he desired; told him that Gov. Abbot, the commandant, had lately gone from St. Vincents on business to Detroit; that a military expedition from the Falls of Ohio against St. Vincents, (which Clark pretended to meditate,) was scarcely necessary. This patriotic priest offered, if it met the approbation of Colonel Clark, "to take the business on himself, and he had no doubt of his being able to bring that place over to the American interest, without," he said, "my being at the trouble of marching against it."

Nor is it unfair to believe that this patriotic clergyman may have taken into consideration the interests of his parishioners of St. Vincents, by trying to save them from the chances of military violence, as well as to promote the extension of the new country of his adoption. The generous and equal spirit justly exhibited by Col. Clark to the Roman Catholics of the Illinois, and which Protestant bigotry had too rarely imitated, together with his paternal administration, all united to propagate American influence, and extend its arms over these Roman Catholic villages.

To the offers of M. Gibault Clark readily assented; for it was the fondest wish of his heart; yet he scarcely ventured to indulge it. At the request of M. Gibault, Doctor La Forge was associated with him as a temporal member of the embassy. The prin

cipal charge of the business was placed in the hands of the good priest.

On the 14th of July, the French gentlemen accompanied by a spy of Clark, (an auxiliary which he seems hardly even to have omitted in the missions he employed,) set off for St. Vincents, or O. Post.* In two or three days, after the arrival of this rather extraordinary embassy, and the enjoyment of full explanation between the priest and his flock, the inhabitants threw off the yoke of the British government, and assembling in a body at the church, took the oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth of Virginia. A commandant was elected, and the American flag immediately displayed over the fort, to the astonishment of the Indians.

Thus again fell another of the French settlements, founded in all probability about 1735.† This event is to be attributed to the friendly influence of M. Gibault, added to the good will of the inhabitants towards the Americans, as the friends and allies of France, and now enemies to their old antagonists, the English. The savages were told by their French friends, "that their old Father, the King of France, had come to life again, and was mad with them for fighting for the English; that if they did not wish the land to be bloody with war, they must make peace with the Americans."

About the 1st of August, 1778, M. Gibault and party returned with the joyful intelligence of having peaceably adjusted everything at St. Vincents, in favor of the American interest; no less to the astonishment of Clark, than to his gratification and that of the inhabitants of Kaskaskia.

A new source of perplexity now opened in the mind of Colonel Clark; the three months for which his men had enlisted now expired. But the discretionary authority so wisely lodged with an officer acting on so remote a stage, and under such embarrassing difficulties, determined him to strain his authority to preserve the public interest, for which it was conferred upon him. He could not divert himself of the only American power on which he could rely, in any emergency, without hazarding the whole fruit of his bold and successful expedition.

A corruption of the French. Au Post, as it was often called.

See an elaborate discussion of the foundation of Vincennes, by the esteemed, truthful and inquisitive Perkins, 66, 67, 2d Edit. Annals of the West.. Bancroft, III, 346.

He therefore re-enlisted his men on a new footing; raised a company among the native inhabitants, commanded by their own officers; established a garrison at Kaskaskia under the command of Capt. Williams, and another at Cahokia under that of Capt. Bow

man.

While Capt. William Linn (formerly commemorated, in an early descent of the Mississippi,) who had accompanied the expedition, as a volunteer, took charge of the men who wished to return; he also had orders from Col. Clark to establish a fort at the Falls of Ohio.

On their arrival in Kentucky, Capt. Linn executed his orders by building a stockade fort at the termination of the present 12th street, on the easterly side of a large ravine, which in 1832 opened into the river. Here was planted the thrifty germ of Louisville, now the emporium of Kentucky, which seems fairly destined to grow with the countless prosperity of this great republic with whose remotest commerce and union she is vitally connected. Captain John Montgomery was also dispatched to Richmond, in Virginia, in charge of M. Rocheblave, the British commandant of Kaskaskia.*

The governor of Virginia was informed of Clark's proceedings through Capt. Montgomery, and his wish that a civil commandant should be appointed to take charge of the political affairs of this secluded portion of the Commonwealth.

In consequence of this recommendation, an act was passed by the legislature of Virginia, in October 1778, enacting that all the

*The fort here mentioned at Louisville was, in 1782, succeeded by a larger one, built by the regular troops, assisted by the militia from all the settled parts of the District of Kentucky. It was situated between the present (1833) 6th and 8th streets, in the northern side of Main street, immediately on the bank of the river. In honor of the third republican governor of Virginia, it was called Fort Nelson. Seventh street passed through the first gate, opposite to the head quarters of the then General Clark.

Some of the

This early and principal military defence, in this part of the valley, deserves a few more particulars. It contained about an acre of ground, and was surrounded by a ditch eight feet deep and ten feet wide, intersected in the middle by a row of sharp pickets; this ditch was surmounted by a breastwork of log pens or inclosures filled with earth obtained from the ditch, together with pickets ten feet high planted on the top of the breast work. Next to the river, pickets alone were deemed sufficient aided by the long slope of the river bank. remains of these pickets were dug up, in the summer of 1832, in excavating the cellars for Mr. John Love's stores, on Main street, opposite to the Louisville Hotel. There was artillery in the fort, particularly a double fortified brass piece which had been captured by Clark at Vincennes. This piece played no inconsiderable part in the military operations of this day of small things, insignificant as they must appear to a regular military critic. The ground of both these forts was personally inspected by the author, in company with the late Capt. Donne, a well known pilot of the Falls, from whom these particulars were learned.

citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia who are already settled or shall hereafter settle on the western side of the Ohio, shall be included in a district county, which shall be called Illinois county." The same statute authorised the appointment of a County Lieutenant, or commandant in chief, in that county, who was himself empowered to appoint deputy commandants and commissaries as he might think proper. In addition to this Virginia organization of Illinois, "all civil officers to which the inhabitants have been accustomed, necessary for the preservation of the peace, and the administration of justice, shall be chosen by a majority of the citizens in their respective districts, to be convened for that purpose by the County Lieutenant or commandant, or his deputy." Col. John Todd, who afterwards lost his life at the disastrous battle of the Blue Licks so much to the regret of the country, received the appointment of Commandant and Lieutenant Colonel of the County of Illinois: a mark of no ordinary confidence for an appointment in a distant province of Virginia. A regiment of five hundred men was also authorized to be raised and an opening of communications with the Spanish city of New Orleans was directed, for the support of this detachment.

About the middle of August Capt. Leonard Helm was appointed by Col. Clark, with no little grandiloquence, commandant at St. Vincents, and "agent for Indian affairs in the department of the Wabash." This officer was particularly recommended to Clark by his knowledge of deportment and general prudence of character. In addition to these civil regulations, Colonel Clark entered into a series of Indian treaties, the first which our countrymen held with the Indians of this portion of the West. These were conducted with an efficiency and dignity, as well as attended with such remarkable circumstances, as to deserve particular detail. Clark had always thought that the policy of inviting Indians to treat, was founded in a mistaken estimate of their character; they always looked upon such invitations, he believed, as evidences either of fear or weakness, or both. He, therefore, studiously avoided every invitation of the sort, and waited for the Indians to request a treaty; while he fought them fiercely and en

Henning's Statutes at large, and Dillon, 150.

Dillon, 150, 151.

* An ancestor of a distinguished family in Kentucky, one of whom was lately Lieutenant Governor of the State.