HISTORY. 97 



upon St. Louis, and attempted to take possession of it, in 

 consequence of the friendly disposition of Spain to the re- 

 volted colonies. There were but 150 males in the place, 

 while their invaders numbered, according to the various state- 

 ments, from 900 to 1,500. The inhabitants of both sexes, 

 the women taking a part in the battle, made such a vigorous 

 resistance that the assailants were compelled to retire, after 

 revenging themselves by the death of sixty and the captivity 

 of thirteen of the inhabitants, who were outside of the pali- 

 sades. 



In 1785, called the year of the great flood, the Missisippi 

 rose fifteen or twenty feet higher at St. Louis than ever before 

 known, and at some narrow points on the river, thirty feet. 

 The villages of St. Genevieve, Fort Chartres, Kaskaskia, St. 

 Philippe, and Kahoka were totally submerged. St. Gene- 

 vieve was at that time situated on a bottom prairie, that has 

 since been entirely washed away. 



The winter of 1799 was distinguished for its extreme 

 cold : as had been also the year 1768. 



In 1778 a body of Virginia militia, under command of Gen. 

 George Rogers Clarke, made an incursion into the Illinois 

 country, then in possession of the British, and captured Fort 

 Chartres, Kaskaskia, and other neighboring posts on the Missi- 

 sippi ; and St. Vincent's on the Wabash, now known as Vin- 

 cennes. In the same year the country was organized as a 

 county, by the Legislature of Virginia, called Illinois County. 

 It was subsequently ceded by Virginia to the United States, 

 and in 1787 made a part of the Territory Northwest of the 

 Ohio River. In 1800, on the establishment of a separate 

 territorial government in Indiana, it was included in that gov- 

 ernment, having, at that period, about 3,000 inhabitants. 



In 1803 the United States, by treaty dated April 30th, ac- 

 quired of France the whole of the vast and beautiful country 



6 



