The Conquest. Eva Emery Dye
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by way of New Orleans. Then Montgomery, with another forty, came down the Ohio.
They must be fed and clothed directly. In the midst of these perplexities appeared John Todd, the new Governor.
"Ah, my friend," Clark grasped his hand. "Now I see myself happily rid of a piece of trouble I take no delight in. I turn the civil government over to you. But our greatest trouble is the lack of money."
"Money? Why, here are continental bills in abundance."
"Worth two cents on the dollar. 'Dose British traders,' say the habitants, 'dey will not take five huntert to one. Dey will have nought but skins.' This has brought our Virginia paper into disrepute. They will not even take a coin unless it is stamped with the head of a king."
"What have you done?"
"Done? Purchased supplies on my own credit. Several merchants of this country have advanced considerable sums and I have given them drafts on our Virginian agent in New Orleans. They come back, protested for want of funds. Francis Vigo has already loaned me ten thousand dollars in silver piastres."
"But Virginia will pay it—she is bound to pay it. The service must not suffer." Thus reassured that his course had been right, Colonel Clark continued:
"Four posts must be garrisoned to hold this country—Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Vincennes, and the Falls of the Ohio—not one has sufficient defence. Colonel Montgomery's force is not half what I expected. But if I am not deceived in the Kentuckians I shall yet be able to complete my designs on Detroit. I only want sufficient men to make me appear respectable in passing among the savages."
The cautious French settlers were a trial to Clark. Father Gibault tried to persuade them, parting with his own tithes and horses to set an example to his parishioners to make equal sacrifices to the American cause. Altogether, Father Gibault advanced seven thousand eight hundred livres, French money, equal to fifteen hundred and sixty dollars—his little all.
Governor Todd said, "If the people will not spare willingly, you must press it."
"I cannot press it," answered Clark. "We must keep the inhabitants attached to us by every means in our power. Rather will I sign notes right and left on my own responsibility to procure absolute necessities to hold Illinois, trusting to Virginia to make it right."
Then after a thoughtful pause—"I cannot think of the consequences of losing possession of the country without resolving to risk every point rather than suffer it."
The bad crops of 1779 and the severity of the winter of 1780 made distress in Illinois. Nevertheless the cheerful habitants sold their harvests to Clark and received in payment his paper on New Orleans.
"You encourage me to attempt Detroit," Clark wrote to Jefferson. "It has been twice in my power. When I first arrived in this country, or when I was at Vincennes, could I have secured my prisoners and had only three hundred men, I should have attempted it, and I since learn there could have been no doubt of my success. But they are now completing a new fort, too strong I fear for any force that I shall ever be able to raise in this country."
Then he hurried back to Vincennes. Thirty only were there of the three hundred expected. An Indian army camped ready to march at his call.
"Never depend upon Injuns," remarked Simon Kenton, reappearing after an absence of weeks.
"Kenton? Well, where have you been? You look battered."
"Battered I am, but better, the scars are almost gone. Captured by Shawnees, made to run the gauntlet twice, then dragged to St. Dusky to be burnt at the stake."
"How did you escape?"
"One of your Detroit Frenchmen, Pierre Drouillard, late interpreter for your captured Hamilton, told them the officers at Detroit wanted to question me about the Big Knife. Ha! Ha! It took a long powwow and plenty of wampum, and the promise to bring me back."
"Did he intend to do it?"
"Lord, no! as soon as we were out of sight he told me, 'Never will I abandon you to those inhuman wretches,' A trader's wife enabled me to escape from Detroit."
"Do you think I can take Detroit?"
"Take it, man? As easy as you took Vincennes. Only the day of surprise is past. A cloud of red Injuns watch the approaches. You must have troops."
Troops! Troops! None came. None could come. What had happened?
Taking with him one of Hamilton's light brass cannon to fortify the Falls of the Ohio, Clark discovered that at the very time of his capture, Hamilton had appointed a great council of Indians to meet at the mouth of the Tennessee.
"The Cherokees have risen on the Tennessee settlements, and the regiments intended for you have turned south."
The sword and belt of Hamilton had done their work. America was fighting two wars at once.
XIII
THE KEY OF THE COUNTRY
"The Falls is the Key of the Country. It shall be my depot of supplies. Here will I build a fort. A great city will one day arise on this spot." And in honour of the King who had helped America, Clark named it Louisville.
Axes, hammers, and saws made music while Clark's busy brain was planning parks and squares to make his city the handsomest in America. But, ever disturbing this recreation, "Detroit" was in his soul. "Public interest requires that I reside here until provision can be made for the coming campaign."
"Since Clark's feat the world is running mad for Kentucky," said the neighbours in Caroline. Through all that Autumn, emigrants were hurrying down to take advantage of the new land laws of Virginia.
"A fleet of flatboats!" shouted the workmen at the Falls. Down with others from Pittsburg, when the autumn rains raised the river, came Clark's old comrade, John Floyd, and his brothers and his bride, Jane Buchanan. One of those brothers was Isham Floyd, the boy drummer of Vincennes.
"I, too, shall build a fort," said John Floyd to his friends, "here on Bear Grass Creek, close to Louisville."
Still emigrants were on their way, when a most terrific winter set in. Stock was frozen, wild beasts and game died. The forests lay deep with snow, and rivers were solid with ice.
The cabins of Louisville were crowded, the fort was filled with emigrants. Food gave out, corn went up to one hundred and fifty dollars a bushel in depreciated continental currency. Even a cap of native fur cost five hundred dollars.
The patient people shivered under their buffalo, bear, and elk-skin bedquilts, penned in the little huts, living on boiled buffalo beef and venison hams, with fried bear or a slice of turkey breast for bread, and dancing on Christmas night with pineknot torches bracketed on the walls.
"Did you not say the conquerors of Vincennes waded through the drowned lands in February?" asked a fair one of her partner at the dance.
"Yes, but that was an open winter. This, thank God, is cold enough to deter our enemies from attempting to recover what they have lost."
"But Colonel Clark said the weather was warm?"
"Warm, did you say? Who knows what Clark would have called warm weather in February? The water up to their armpits could not have been warm at that time of year."
The spring waters broke; a thousand emigrants went down the Ohio to Louisville. And carcasses of bear, elk, deer, and lesser game floated out of the frozen forests.
During the June rise more than three hundred flatboats arrived at the Falls loaded with wagons; for months long trains were departing from Louisville with these people bound for the interior. Floyd's fort on the Bear Grass became a rendezvous; the little harbour an anchorage for watercraft.
"We must establish a claim to the