prove useless against 800 men. No army really marched to attack him from Detroit, but Governor Hamilton sent a body of forty English and Indians to abduct Clark. This force lay in ambush one day as the Colonel journeyed from Kaskaskia to La Prairie De Rocher, but made no attack. When he arrived at his destination, the "gentlemen and ladies immediately assembled at a ball for our entertainment; we spent the fore-part of the night very agreeably, but about twelve o'clock" a message came with the report that Hamilton with 800 was preparing to attack Kaskaskia. The ball broke up in a manner similar to that famous one at Brussels several years later, but amid the confusion, and the general rushing around, Clark found time to see that "all eyes were turned upon him," as if awaiting his decision. He and his men hurried to Kaskaskia, slipped into the fort after great trouble to avoid detection, by the foe, treated the towns-people rigorously to compel them to furnish provisions, burned several houses near the fort, ordered re-enforcements from Cahokia, -then found no foe but forty men sent out to capture him, and they were going to St. Vincents as fast as they could.

His

parations were made to retreat to the Spanish possessions across the Mississippi in case of necessity. The Spanish Government Spanish Government had opened friendly communications, and now gave encouragement to the plan. While Clark was preparing against great odds to make the best of his situation, Pierre Gibault, priest of Kaskaskia, volunteered to go to St. Vincents and do what he could for Clark. offer was taken, and in company with Dr. La Font and Capt. Leonard Helm, he went to the town and on August 6, 1778, it passed into American hands, the people taking the oath that day, Sunday, in the church, and marching in a body to the fort, which surrendered at once. December 17, 1778, Gov. Hamilton recaptured St. Vincents and decided to wait till spring to attack Clark, believing that the waters covering Illinois for several miles west of St. Vincents would hold the latter a prisoner. He made here a fatal mistake, for Clark and his men cared little for storms and waters. To march across Illinois from Kaskaskia to St. Vincents at that season was dangerous and full of hardships; but they left the former town February 1, 1779, and after an incredible march, going many days without food, wading neck-deep in water, sleeping on the muddy ground, and risking death in the creeks and bayous every day, they arrived at the post, which surrendered February 25, 1779, after a short siege. After several vain efforts to attack Detroit, Clark returned to the falls of the Ohio

in October and wrote an account of his campaign to George Mason of Virginia. After erecting Fort Jefferson on the Mississippi, a few miles below the mouth of the Ohio in 1780, he went to Virginia in 1781 to submit plans for capturing Detroit, but Arnold's raid occurring then, he entered the army again and was made brigadier general.

It is seldom a writer's lot to find his story make an abrupt change, or a reader's to learn that a character changes entirely in a year, or even a month. But at this point every student of Clark's life will be grieved at the change in his character. He lost his decision, his judgment, his energy, his eagle glance and iron will. The capacity to lead vanished as a meteor, but not the desire to lead. It seems strange that one of his ability and success should not have had some more signal mark of honor, and should not have risen to higher places. His work was appreciated very fully, and his ability was admitted. He was proud, stubborn, arrogant, extravagantly fond of leading, and fretted and grumbled in all other places but the first. Men were not attached to him, none were cheerful subordinates, none willing peers. His capacity to handle a small army was great, but he was a martinet, and ruled by violent methods. He excelled in Indian affairs, having too much sense to give them "soft speeches."

When Louisville was founded in 1780 he made it headquarters, and ex

erted himself to attack could not raise an army.

stung him bitterly; he

Detroit, but
His failure

believed the

aid withheld from him was given to a government favorite, felt himself insulted and wronged, thought over his misfortunes until he became absorbed in them, and suffered the common fate of misanthropes,-incompetency and indecision. Only twice after 1776 did he acquit himself in the west soldier; once in 1780, when he made a successful attack on the Indians in Ohio, and again in 1782 when he led a thousand riflemen to avenge the battle of Blue Licks, in both of which he acted as became a great general.

as a

No explanation has been given for his sudden mental decay. However, it is very plain that he was the victim of disappointments public, as excessively proud men are apt to be. He confessed himself "often to blame for not making use of interest for my promotion, but to merit it first is such a fixed principle with me that I never could and hope I never shall ask for a post of honor." Verily, this is a grand assumption of virtue! And since the post of honor is that of greatest service and danger, patriots may ask for it. He further says that if the public would judge by merit we would be rewarded for the virtue we have, which is but a mild way of saying that he had the virtue, but the public lacked the sense to assign him its proper reward. Such words come from one who, too proud to ask for what he wants, desires that honors be awarded, and wants them

to come with a general acknowledge ment of his superior powers and goodness, and is out of humor because they have not been. Gen. Clark, the one indisputable great man in Kentucky, young and very ambitious, overestimated the men of the world by measuring himself and his services by a standard that was too small, and thus failing to keep in mind the disproportion between the men about him and his rivals, persuaded himself that he was ill-treated. He expected too much, he flirted with fame instead of besieging her citadel with host. Men get fame by seizing it, not by big talk. It is also evident, as another cause of his loss of ability, that he was disappointed in love. Exposure in the Illinois campaigns, marching days through the water in February, sleeping in winter on the wet, cold ground, planted discase in his frame, and whatever we may say, his services in the army ruined his health and contributed to his general mental and physical decay. The land granted to him by Virginia in Indiana, through a large tract, was small pay for the health and strength which he gave to the nation.

The Indians along the Wabash in Indiana, about the present cities of Lafayette and Terre Haute, having committed numerous outrages, an army was assembled at Vincennes in the year 1786, and Gen. Clark led it against the enemy. The expedition proved a disgraceful failure, and came near ending in a mutiny.

Returning to Vincennes, a meeting

of officers was held, which decided that a garrison was needed, and took steps necessary to raise and maintain it. Clark assumed command, levied recruits and provisions, seized the property of the Spanish merchants, and invited the Indians to a treaty at Clarksville; they preferred to meet at Vincennes, and April, 1787, was fixed for the meeting. While these affairs were in progress, the news of a proposition made to Congress by John Jay, that the United States should relinquish the navigation of the Mississippi for twenty-five years, spread over the west and south-west as an actual treaty, which the Senate was about to ratify, provoking the indignation of the frontiersmen, and setting the entire valley in a furor of excitement. The proposition was understood in the west as a treaty. At this time, Spain, by virtue of a secret cession of Louisiana to her by France, owned that territory, and her rulers were averse to the navigation of the Mississippi by the Americans; not, it seems, because they feared American encroachments, for they believed the settlement of the west a danger which the United States Government was too wise to. incur, but from the inherent and immeasurable ignorance of Europeans on subjects American. The great

outlet for trade in the west was the

Mississippi. That its navigation should be lost was a hardship not to be endured, and the way to retain it was to drive the Spaniards out.

Clark's army at Vincennes, it was

generally understood, was to be used to capture Natchez, then an important Spanish town, and drive the Spaniards from the country. One Thomas Green, a bombastic sort of fellow, agitated the matter, and a circular was sent over the country announcing that the western people would throw off allegiance to the United States unless aided in their struggle against Spain, and that they would apply to some foreign power for protection. Great Britain was mentioned as being anxious to receive them. Great noise often comes from small and unreliable sources. The loud, violent talk ended, the sober, second thought of the people showed them no danger, and a call was made for an investigation of Clark's doing at Vincennes. The people were alarmed lest Clark and Green should bring on Indian wars. A request to the Governor of Virginia to look after the agitators went up from Danville, Kentucky; the matter went before Congress, and the Secretary of War was ordered (1787) to dispossess a body of men who had, in a lawless and unauthorized manner, taken possession of Post Vincennes in defiance and authority of the United States. A committee appointed to investigate the conduct of the leaders in this first attempt at secession submitted a report greatly to Clark's discredit. Steps were advised that would lead to the punishment of the leaders, but nothing was done save disavow their actions and making satisfactory explanations to the Spanish court for the indignities

suffered by its subjects in Vincennes.

Thus ended somewhat in disgrace the career of General George Rogers Clark as a servant of the United States, before he was thirty-six years old. One blunder was sufficient to bring a stain, but not wisdom. When the dishonorable Genet, French minister to the United States, began his work of raising fleets and armies for the French in this country to capture the Spanish possessions in the southwest in 1792, Clark volunteered his services and was made a major-general of the French army, but before he entered the field a fresh massacre in Paris created a new batch of rulers, who annulled his commission.

No American can fail to regret deeply that the name of a gallant American soldier should by that soldier's choice ever be entered on the military rolls of a government sated with blood and founded upon murder.

Rheumatism had long afflicted him. He was also stricken with paralysis. For more than twenty years an invalid, his declining years full of pain and sorrow, were in striking contrast to the strong, adventurous days of his young manhood. His death occurred in 1818, at Locust Grove, Kentucky, where his tomb is.

His fame is deservedly great, despite his faults. spite his faults. He had no confidence in time, and was foolishly impatient of restraint and delay. Seldom did he show that wisdom so often manifested by Jefferson in biding his time, and in letting events

conspire for his good. His best work, the work by which he will live, and by which we prefer to remember him, was done before he was twenty-eight years old. No subsequent events increased, but many diminished his reputation. Some genialty, genialty, some courtesy, a continuation in kindness, and urbanity of the practice of the arts of intrigue which he was master of when he was young, would have

made him more successful. Where softness of speech might have been used, he was harsh; where patience was the key, he was too often restless, where the future should have been consulted he sat at the feet of only the present. The diplomacy shown in hist early days, was totally wanting in maturity and old age.

Perhaps the saddest feature of his entire life is that he never married. EZRA MATTINGLY.

has

MR. CYRUS KINGSBURY REMINGTON embarked upon an am bitious undertaking, but a close examination of his labor as it has been so far conducted leads to the conclusion that he has been profitably employed, even though his conclusions may be challenged by some who have studied the history of the Erie and Ontario country. He has undertaken to locate the exact spot upon which Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur De La Salle, the first white man to spread a sail upon Lake Erie, built that ship"Griffon " that has been surrounded by so much of romantic interest and mystery-the vessel that set forth with so much of expectation, and went down beneath the new and blue waters before the return from her first voyage.

Mr. Remington does not merely set out to locate the spot upon which the ship was built, but wishes also to set upon foot a movement that shall erect thereon a monument to the venturesome La Salle. The suggestion is commendable-the memorial may fittingly be raised, whether or not upon the exact point where the "Griffon's" keel was laid. It was rather by chance than premeditation that Mr. Remington was led to prepare the illustrated monogram which has just come to hand, and upon which

these comments are based. "In the Express of this city" (Buffalo,) he writes, in an introductory note, "date of January 26, 1890, I had the privilege, in an article, of showing a location supposed by me to be the place where the first vessel of La Salle, the 'Griffon,' was constructed in the year 1679, and by which agency he intended to explore the Western Lakes, and if possible to find an outlet by water to China and the Indies. Since its publication I have been in receipt of several communications regarding this and other supposed sites. There being such a diversity of opinion, I have determined to re-write the article in part, adding all the knowledge regarding this subject that I have been able to obtain from any source and in full, in order now to definitely determine the site, as the march of improvement is rapidly nearing this particular spot, and in a few years the few historical places of this section will have been entirely obliterated. This explanation gives sufficient reason for the appearance of this book."

"THE object of this paper," he continues, "is not to recount the whole history of the explorer La Salle, but to present for the consideration of the people of this day the obliligations they are under to this man, who