56 The Winning of the West 



shadowy as those acquired by the Spanish and Por- 

 tuguese kings when the Pope, with empty munifi- 

 cence, divided between them the Eastern and the 

 Western hemispheres. For a century the French 

 had held adverse possession ; for a decade and a half 

 the British, not the colonial authorities, had acted as 

 their unchallenged heirs ; to the Americans the coun- 

 try was as much a foreign land as was Canada. It 

 could only be acquired by force, and Clark's teem- 

 ing brain and bold heart had long been busy in plan- 

 ning its conquest. He knew that the French vil- 

 lages, the only settlements in the land, were the seats 

 of the British power, the headquarters whence their 

 commanders stirred up, armed, and guided the hos- 

 tile Indians. If these settled French districts were 

 coriquered, and the British posts that guarded them 

 captured, the whole territory would thereby be won 

 for the Federal Republic, and added to the heritage 

 of its citizens; while the problem of checking and 

 subduing the Northwestern Indians would be greatly 

 simplified, because the source of much of both their 

 power and hostility would be cut off at the springs. 



panics were composed of British, American, and Canadian 

 merchants and traders, of London, Philadelphia, Baltimore, 

 Quebec, etc. Lord Dunmore was in the Wabash Company. 

 The agents of the companies, in after years, made repeated 

 but unsuccessful efforts to get Congress to confirm their 

 grants. Although these various companies made much noise 

 at the time, they introduced no new settlers into the land, 

 and, in fact, did nothing of lasting effect ; so that it is mere 

 waste of time to allude to most of them. See, however, the 

 "History of Indiana," by John B. Dillon (Indianapolis, 1859), 

 pp. 102-109, etc ' 



