228 The Winning of the West 



ish and Indian foes, these, for the most part, re- 

 mained royalists. In 1778 a party of armed Ameri- 

 cans, coming down the Ohio and Mississippi, tried 

 to persuade them to turn whig, but, becoming em- 

 broiled with them, the militant missionaries were 

 scattered and driven off. Afterward the royalists 

 fought among themselves; but this was a mere 

 faction quarrel, and was soon healed. Toward the 

 end of 1779, Galvez, with an army of Spanish and 

 French Creole troops, attacked the forts along the 

 Mississippi Manchac, Baton Rouge, Natchez, and 

 one or two smaller places, speedily carrying them 

 and capturing their garrisons of British regulars 

 and royalist militia. During the next eighteen 

 months he laid siege to and took Mobile and Pen- 

 sacola. While he was away on his expedition 

 against the latter place, the royalist Americans 

 around Natchez rose and retook the fort from the 

 Spaniards; but at the approach of Galvez they fled 

 in terror, marching overland toward Georgia, then 

 in the hands of the tories. On the way they suffered 

 great loss and damage from the Creeks and Choc- 

 taws. 



The Spanish commander at St. Louis was in- 

 spired by the news of these brilliant victories to try 

 if he, too, could not gain a small wreath at the ex- 

 pense of Spain's enemies. Clark had already be- 

 come thoroughly convinced of the duplicity of the 

 Spaniards on the upper Mississippi; he believed 

 that they were anxious to have the British retake 

 Illinois, so that they, in their turn, might conquer 



