The Indian Wars, 1784-1787 205 



French inhabitants and were a terror to the peace 

 able, as well as to the lawless, Indians. Doubtless 

 Clark desired to hold them in readiness as much 

 for a raid on the Spanish possessions as for a defence 

 against the Indians. Nevertheless they did some 

 service in preventing any actual assault on the place 

 by the latter, while they prevented any possible up 

 rising by the French, though the harassed Creoles, 

 under this added burden of military lawlessness, in 

 many instances accepted the offers made them by 

 the Spaniards and passed over to the French villages 

 on the west side of the Mississippi. 



Before Clark left Vincennes, he summoned a 

 court of his militia officers, and got them to sanc 

 tion the seizure of a boat loaded with valuable goods, 

 the property of a creole trader from the Spanish 

 possessions. The avowed reason for this act was 

 revenge for the wrongs perpetrated in like manner 

 by the Spaniards on the American traders ; and this 

 doubtless was the controlling motive in Clark's 

 mind; but it was also true that the goods thus con 

 fiscated were of great service to Clark in paying his 

 mutinous and irregularly employed troops, and that 

 this fact, too, had influence with him. 



The more violent and lawless among the back 

 woodsmen of Kentucky were loud in exultation over 

 this deed. They openly declared that it was not 

 merely an act of retaliation on the Spaniards, but 

 also a warning that, if they did not let the Ameri 

 cans trade down the river, they would not be allowed 

 to trade up it; and that the troops who garrisoned 



