narrow bridge, on the ridge beyond it were the entrenchments of the old camp of the Indians, piles of wood, fences and houses. Behind these the whole force of the Indians was posted. As the advance filed over the bridge, they were assailed by a volley from the Indians, and recoiled. Again they charged over the bridge and up the hill, but the Indians gave way and escaped in the darkness. Suddenly they appeared in the rear, with an intent to cut the detachment off from the fort; a retreat was immediately ordered. The Indians occupied a row of houses and fences along the line of their march, and from these they poured a continual and destructive fire upon the centre and rear of the army. They were thus thrown into disorder, and retreated in confusion along the river bank, until Major Rogers, with a party of provincials, took possession of a Canadian house, from which he attacked the pursuers and checked the pursuit. Capt. Grant then secured another position below; a line of communication with the fort was formed, and the retreat of the detachment thus protected. Rogers and his party were brought off under a fire from the boats, and at length, after six hours' fighting, the whole party reached the fort. The loss of the English on this disastrous night was fiftynine, including the commander Dalzell; the loss of the Indians was supposed to be about fifteen or twenty.

The Indians were greatly elated by their victory; messages were sent out, fresh warriors came in, and the siege was pressed with renewed vigor. One of the schooners, meanwhile, had gone to Niagara. On her return, some Iroquois were landed at the mouth of the river, and conveyed to the Indians the information that she was manned by only ten men. A large band of Indians in canoes collected and surrounded the vessel. They had approached close to the vessel in the darkness before they were discovered, and climbing up the vessel's side, made a furious attack upon the crew, in disregard of the musketry that was poured upon them. The captain was killed, and several of the men were wounded, and the assailants began to crowd the deck, when Lieut. Jacobs ordered the men to fire the magazine and blow up the ship. The Indians heard the order and instantly leaped overboard and swam in every direction, to escape the threatened explosion, and the vessel sailed up the river to Detroit.” * The

*From the Western Annals.

siege was pressed from May till October. At length, news reached the Indians that a British force, under Major Wilkins, was approaching. This news had the effect to scatter and dishearten the Indians. At length, Pontiac was informed, by a letter from Neyon, commandant at the Illinois, a French officer who was compelled to reveal the truth to the confiding savages. This letter plainly revealed the hopelessness of French assistance, and called upon Pontiac to espouse the English cause. The great chieftain was mortified. His great scheme had fallen.

He broke

camp, and threatening the English with a return in the spring, he passed down to the Maumee.

CHAPTER XII.

FRENCH ILLINOIS.

The Illinois Country Ceded to Great Britain-Johnson's Disastrous Expedition-Sketch of the Illinois Country-Last of the French.

DETROIT and Fort Pitt were the only outposts that withstood the fury of the Indians, and these held out only under the greatest dangers and hardships. The latter was relieved by the celebrated expedition of Col. Henry Bouquet. In the following spring, 1764, Pontiac again led the western tribes against the border posts and settlements, but the expeditions of Brodstreet on the one hand, and Col. Bouquet on the other, put a stop to their incursions.

Besides the settlements and posts we have spoken of, there were six settlements of the French east of the Mississippi, what was called Illinois, which, though not included in the capitulation of Montreal, were ceded by the treaty of Paris to Great Britain. They were, Cahokia, at the mouth of Cahokia creek, less than four miles below the site of St. Louis; St. Philip, fortyfive miles below Cahokia, on the Mississippi; Kaskaskia, on Kaskaskia river, six miles from its mouth; Fort Chartres, about fif

teen miles northwest from Kaskaskia, on the Mississippi; Prairie du Rocher, near Fort Chartres; and Vincennes, on the Wabash. All these settlements were under the government of St. Ange de Belle Rive, commandant at Fort Chartres, subordinate to M. D'Abadie, at New Orleans, who was director general and civil and military commandant of the province of Louisiana, under the king. It was known that Louisiana east of the Mississippi had been surrendered to the English; it was not known that Louisiana west of the Mississippi had been ceded to Spain, and accordingly, immediately after the capitulation of Canada was known in Louisiana, movements were set on foot to extend the settlements and power of France beyond the Mississippi. The most important of these, was the settlement of St. Louis. On the 16th of March, 1763, after the cession of western Louisiana to Spain, D'Abadie was appointed governor of Louisiana. Shortly after his arrival, on the 29th of June, at New Orleans, he granted to Pierre Ligeuste Laclede, and his associates, under the name of "The Louisiana Fur Company," a charter containing "the necessary powers to trade with the Indians of Missouri, and those west of the Mississippi, above the Missouri, as far north as the river St. Peters," with authority to establish such posts as they might think fit in furtherance of their enterprise. Accord ingly, on the 3d of August, Laclede with his party, including Auguste and Pierre Chouteau in his family, both then very young, left New Orleans, and on the 3d of November, reached St. Genevieve. At that period there were only two settlements of the French west of the Mississippi, above the post of Arkansas. On the present site of New Madrid, a trading post was established as early, according to tradition, as 1740.* The early inhabitants were chiefly hunters and traders; and, from the great number of bears in that region, their principal occupation was the chase of that animal, and the preparation and sale of bear's oil, which they collected and shipped, by the Kaskaskia traders, to New Orleans. From this circumstance, and from the fact that it was situated on a bend of the river, it was named in keeping with French Creole humor, "L'Anse d' la Gresse" (greasy bend). On a beautiful plateau of alluvion, consisting of some five thousand *Peck's Compilation.

acres, and extending some three miles below the present town of that name, the old village of St. Genevieve was located. It was settled as an agricultural hamlet about 1755, but, in addition to its agricultural advantages, its proximity to the mines, and its beautiful situation on the Mississippi, invited settlers; and a considerable accession to its population was afterward made by the French, who retired beyond the Mississippi immediately after the treaty of Paris, to avoid the rule of the British. Laclede found the position of St. Genevieve too far from the mouth of the Missouri to serve his purposes; no house, indeed in it, was found large enongh to accommodate his stores. Having been offered by the commandant the use of the store at Fort Chartres for that purpose, he proceeded to that place, where his party spent the winter. In the meantime, he explored the western side of the Mississippi, and chose a site on its western bank, eighteen miles below the mouth of the Missouri. It was a grove of heavy timber skirting the river bank, and behind it, at an elevation of some thirty feet, there extended a beautiful expanse of undulating prairie. Returning to Fort Chartres, he collected his party, increased by some families from Cahokia, Kaskaskia, and the other French villages, and on the 15th of February, 1764, landed at the site he had chosen, took formal possession of it in the name of France, and laid off the lines of a town which he named St. Louis, in honor of Louis XV.* The position of the new town was inviting; the French of the Illinois were deeply dissatisfied with the cession of the treaty of Paris, and to avoid living under the government of their hereditary enemies, and, as they hoped, to remain under the protection of their mother country, many of them crossed the river and located themselves at, or near St. Louis. The hamlets of Vide Poche, or Carondelet, established by De Tergette, in 1767, six miles below St. Louis ; Les Petites Cotes, now St. Charles, established by Blanchette, in 1769; Florisant, established by Demegant, between St. Louis and St. Charles, in 1776; and the Portage des Sioux, established about the same time, eight miles above the mouth of the Missouri, were also places around which dissatisfied Frenchmen assembled.

In the early spring of 1764, Capt. George Johnston with a *Peck's Compilation.

regiment of troops set out to take possession of Louisiana; and, on the 27th of February he dispatched Major Loftus to occupy Fort Chartres. The latter proceeded with his detachment up the Mississippi a considerable distance above Red River, where he was attacked by hostile Indians, slain with a large number of his men, and the detachment broken, and disheartened, returned. After this the attempt to occupy the Illinois was abandoned until the following year, when a general peace with the Indians was concluded. In the spring of 1765, Capt. Sterling of the British army, was sent, by way of Detroit, to the Illinois to take possession of the posts and settlements of the French, east of the Mississippi. When he arrived, St. Ange surrendered Fort Chartres, and retired with his garrison and many of the French inhabitants to St. Louis, where he acted as commandant by the consent of the people until superseded by the Spanish governor, Piernas, in 1770. Capt. Sterling received the allegiance of the Frenchmen who remained, and established British rule over them. remained only a short time in Illinois and was Maj. Farmer, who was succeeded by Col. Reed. excessively tyrannical and becoming exceedingly unpopular left the colony. He was succeeded by Lieut. Col. Wilkins, who arrived at Kaskaskia in 1768. In the spring following his arrival he established courts of justice and appointed seven judges, who met and held their first court at Fort Chartres on the 6th of Dec. 1768. The trial by jury was denied and the courts soon became unpopular. It cannot well be ascertained just when Col. Wilkins left the country or who succeeded him, but in 1778, when Col. Geo. R. Clarke took possession of it, Mr. Rochelave was the com

mandant.

Capt. Sterling

succeeded by The latter was

A detailed and interesting description of the French settlements in what was known as the country of the Illinois, is given in a work entitled "The Present State of the European Settlement on the Mississippi," by Capt. Phillip Pitman, and published in London in 1770. He speaks of the country as bounded by the Mississippi on the west, by the river Illinois on the north, the rivers Wabash and Miami on the east and the Ohio on the south. this tract of country he writes as follows:

Of

"The air, in general, is pure, and the sky serene, except in the