In the Current of the Revolution 91 



took service again under the British king, swearing 

 a solemn oath of allegiance. They certainly showed 

 throughout the most light-hearted indifference to 

 chronic perjury and treachery; nor did they in 

 other respects appear to very good advantage. Clark 

 was not in the least surprised at the news of their 

 conduct; for he had all along realized that the at- 

 tachment of the French would prove but a slender 

 reed on which to lean in the moment of trial. 



Hamilton had no fear of the inhabitants them- 

 selves, for the fort completely commanded the 

 town. To keep them in good order he confiscated 

 all their spirituous liquors, and in a rather amusing 

 burst of Puritan feeling destroyed two billiard 

 tables, which he announced were "sources of im- 

 morality and dissipation in such a settlement." 12 

 He had no idea that he was in danger of attack 

 from without, for his spies brought him wofd that 

 Clark had only a hundred and ten men in the Illinois 

 country 13 ; and the route between was in winter 

 one of extraordinary difficulty. 



He had five hundred men and Clark but little 

 over one hundred. He was not only far nearer 

 his base of supplies and reinforcements at Detroit, 

 than Clark was to his at Fort Pitt, but he was also 

 actually across Clark's line of communications. 

 Had he pushed forward at once to attack the Ameri- 

 cans, and had he been able to overcome the diffi- 

 culties of the march, he would almost certainly have 



12 Do. 



13 Do. "Fourscore at Kaskaskia and thirty at Cahokia." 



