92 NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST. 



prisoners, about eighty. The alhes, content with their re- 

 venge, re-embarked Avith their prisoners, and returned to their 

 own countr3^ — Bossu, i., p. 129, et seq. 



In 1762, France, by a secret treaty, ceded Louisiana to 

 Spain, to prevent it from falHng into the hands of the Eng- 

 lish, with Canada, which it now became manifest must 

 become the property of the latter nation by conquest, and 

 w^hich was actually given up to the English in the following 

 year (1763), by the treaty of Paris. Tw^enty years after- 

 ward, by the treaty of peace between England and the United 

 States, that part of Canada lying south and w^est of the great 

 lakes, and comprehending a large territory wdiich is the sub- 

 ject of these sketches, w^as acknowledged to be a portion 

 of the United States ; and twenty years still later (in 1803), 

 .Louisiana was ceded by Spain back to France, and by France 

 sold to the United States. 



Li 1763, Mr. Laclede, w^ho, in the preceding year, had 

 received a charter to trade wdth the Indians, from the French 

 governor at New Orleans, ascended the river, leaving New^ 

 Orleans in August, and, on the third of November, arrived at 

 St. Genevieve ; and, in the following spring, with thirty 

 others, on account of insufficient accommodation at St. Gene- 

 vieve, passed over the river to Fort Chartres, a post esta- 

 blished by the French ni 1732. 



In the half century from the building of the foi't of Creve- 

 coeur, 1680, up to the period of that of Fort Chartres, many 

 French settlements had been made in that quarter. The 

 principal were St. Vincent's, on the Wabash, and Kaskaskia, 

 Kahokia, and Prairie du Rocher, on the American Bottom, a 

 large tract of river alluvion in Illinois, on the Missisippi, 

 opposite to St. Louis. But here, being informed that all the 

 Illmois had been given up to Great Britain, they crossed the 

 river, and established themselves at St. Louis, on the right 



