Unpaid, and under no regular authority, these men plundered the French
inhabitants and were a terror to the peaceable, 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
uprising 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.
Clark Seizes a Spanish Boat.
Before Clark left Vincennes, he summoned a court of his militia
officers, and got them to sanction 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 confiscated were of great service to Clark
in paying his mutinous and irregularly employed troops, and that this
fact, too, had influence with him.
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