The westward movement : the colonies and the republic west of the Alleghanies, 1763-1798 with full cartographical illustrations from contemporary sources, Part 15

Author: Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897. cn
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Boston ; New York : Houghton, Mifflin and Co.
Number of Pages: 622


USA > Mississippi > The westward movement : the colonies and the republic west of the Alleghanies, 1763-1798 with full cartographical illustrations from contemporary sources > Part 15


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On June 17, 1779, Germain notified Haldimand of the Span- ish war, and instructed him to reduce the Spanish posts on the Mississippi and assault New Orleans. At the very beginning of the year (1779) Hamilton, at Vincennes, had reported that the southern Indians, Chickasaws, Cherokees, Choctaws, and Alibamons, had been banded in the British interests, and that were he sure that Spain had declared war, he could, with the aid of the savages, push the Spaniards from the Mississippi, since, as he affirms, the Spanish authorities had but slender influence with the tribes. The British commander at Pensacola had also had his emissaries among the Cherokees, and within a month from the time when Haldimand was prompted by Ger- main to attack the Spanish, these savage marauders were harry- ing the confines of Carolina. Arthur Lee had anticipated this, and while Germain was writing to Haldimand, Lee was warning Spain that a British foothold in Carolina meant the use of it as a base to dispatch the Indians against the Spaniards on the Gulf. Already, by a paet with the tribes, the Chickasaws and Choctaws were scattered along the Ohio and Mississippi to


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THE SINISTER PURPOSES OF FRANCE.


intercept supplies from New Orleans, in case they had run the gauntlet at Natchez, where some English rangers under Captain Bloomer were now stationed.


This was the condition in the Great Valley, and such were the English intentions, when Galvez, the young Spanish governor at New Orleans, threw himself into the war with admirable spirit. As early as March, 1779, Patrick Henry had urged upon Washington to dispatch an expedition against Natchez to preserve communications with New Orleans from the up- country, since Pollock's shipments of munitions and supplies by the river had become uncertain. Little heed, however, had been given to the advice, and at this time there was a small chance that Campbell at Pensacola and Hamilton at Vincennes might be able to work in conjunction and maintain the blockade of the river, if not drive the Spaniards out.


On July 8, the Madrid authorities had sent instructions to Galvez for an active campaign. The proclamation of hostili- ties with England had been made at Havana on July 22, and Galvez was soon aware of the British purpose, which he learned from an intereepted dispatch.


By August 18, he had fitted out a flotilla, when a hurricane, sweeping the river, sank his vessels. His energy soon replaced them. Accompanied by Pollock -to whom Galvez had un- successfully offered a Spanish commission - and a few other Americans, who preferred to carry their own flag as a separate ' detachment, and with a following of six hundred and seventy men, Galvez began the ascent of the river. On September 7, with a force increased at this time to over fourteen hundred men, he approached the southernmost point held by the British, Bayou Manchac, where he carried Fort Bute by assault. He was now one hundred and fifteen miles above New Orleans, and from this point to Natchez the British were in possession. A week afterwards (September 13), he began regular approaches before the fort at Baton Rouge, and eight days later it surren- dered, and carried with it Fort Panmure at Natchez, the suc- cessor on the same site of the old Fort Rosalie of the Natchez wars. Colonel Hutchins, the paramount British authority in the region, and a traitorous sneak by nature, left it to Colonel Dickson to make the surrender.


Several hundred prisoners, large supplies, and various trans-


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163


JOHN ADAMS.


ports thus fell into Spanish hands, and Galvez returned to New Orleans to extend Louisiana over Florida, as far as the Pearl River, and to welcome in October some reinforcements from Havana.


These successes encouraged Pollock, who was just now much in need of good cheer. With Continental money in circulation to about $200,000,000, and reduced to an insignificant value, Congress had failed to keep with him its promises of remittances, and, to make matters worse, not a single vessel of those he had sent north by sea with supplies had escaped the British block- aders. About the only produce which Congress could depend upon to keep Pollock in funds was flour, and it was practically under an embargo in the Atlantic ports, so much of it had been needed to feed the army and D'Estaing's fleet. Nor could relief be immediate. There had never before been so fine a crop of wheat in the States, but it would take time to grind and bolt it, and to send it to New Orleans amid the risks of capture.


While affairs were thus prosperous at New Orleans for Spain, and American interests were with increasing difficulty sustained by Pollock, Congress had been struggling with the question of the ultimate bounds of the new Republic, and now in the instruction given (August 14) to John Adams, who was about going abroad prepared to treat with Great Britain, it had substantially agreed upon the limits set by that body some months before.


Adams was just at this time in a rampant state of mind, - a condition not unusual with him, - and in a letter from Brain- tree (August 4), while Congress was coming to its purpose, he had not only objected to the surrender to Great Britain of Nova Scotia and Canada, but he had pictured, in ignorance of her secret intentions, the great complacency of Spain, which he judged would make her an agreeable neighbor in the future. But Congress, before its president could have received Adams's letter, declared, on August 5, that if Great Britain persisted "in the prosecution of the present unjust war," advances should be made to enter into a defensive and offensive alliance with France and Spain jointly, to the end of gaining Canada, Florida, and the free navigation of the Mississippi. It only


164


THE SINISTER PURPOSES OF FRANCE.


shows how little the true character of Spanish and French pur- poses was understood in Congress, that it could have hoped to bring at that time those powers to assure the States any one of those three conditions.


The same propositions were again brought under discussion on September 9, when the terms of a treaty with Spain were considered, and two days later it was determined to agree to join Spain in an invasion of Florida and the conquest of Pensa- cola, but only on condition of her granting the free navigation of the Mississippi, with a port of entry below 31°. Matters between them would run smoother, it was interjected, if Spain would advance the States the sum of five million dollars. In this frame of mind Congress committed the Spanish mission to Jay on September 27, and two days later passed his instruc- tions in accordance.


Neither France nor Spain was prepared to accept such terms, and the French minister at Philadelphia renewed his protests and pictured the future misery of a republic too large to hold together, - a future of disintegration that was much to the mind of Vergennes. Virginia, the most interested of the colonies in this territorial integrity, was urgently instructing her delegates never to think of yielding to the Spanish claim.


Meanwhile, on August 2, a successor to Gérard in Luzerne had landed at Boston. Thence he made his way to West Point, to confer with Washington. The new envoy inquired of the 'commander-in-chief how far his army could be depended upon in an attack on Florida. Washington was wary, and we have the notes of the talk, made by Hamilton, who acted as inter- preter. By these it appears that Washington thought it might be possible to assist in that enterprise, if Congress thought well of it, and the British were driven from Georgia and South Car- olina. There was here a confirmation of Arthur Lee's opinion of the difficulty of holding Florida, with the enemy in those States.


This attempt to engage Washington independent of Con- gress was quite in accordance with the purpose of Vergennes to make the several States agree on their own parts to the treaties. Vergennes's object was thereby to perpetuate better the influence of France among them, - a condition which that minister never lost sight of in view of an ultimate agreement with Great Brit-


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THE FRENCH PEOPLE.


ain. In September, he plainly intimated to his confidants that while it was to be hoped that the United States would hold compact till their independence was secured, the interest of France required after such an event that the union should be broken, in order that it should not become a power dangerous to France and her aspirations. That there was among the French people and in the French military and naval contingent a wide sympathy for the cause of American independence is true ; but it was emasculated by the perfidy of their ministry. America's obligation to what stood at that time politically for France was much like the dependence of an unfortunate spendthrift upon a calculating pawnbroker. It is a misuse of words to call this obligation by the name of gratitude.


What Hamilton divined in that day has been abundantly proved by the publication of evidence in our day : "The dis- memberment of this country from Great Britain was both a determinary motive and an adequate compensation to France for the assistance afforded." Again he says: " If a service is rendered for . .. the immediate interests of the party who performs it, and is productive of reciprocal advantages, there seems scarcely an adequate basis for a sentiment like that of gratitude. . . . To suppose that France was actuated by friend- ship ... is to be ignorant of the springs of action which inva- riably regulate the cabinets of princes."


In following the course of France in our Revolutionary War, there is every reason to emancipate ourselves from predilec- tions, prejudice, and tradition, the three great ensnarers of seekers for historical truth.


CHAPTER X.


A YEAR OF SUSPENSE.


1780.


VIRGINIA had persistently nurtured her territorial claims to the northwest ever since the treaty of 1763 had brought this over-mountain region under British control, and the royal proc- lamation had formulated an issne. She had resented the pre- tensions of that proclamation in constituting this territory " crown lands " for Indian occupancy. She had rehearsed her claims till the other colonies were tired of them. She had never once questioned, as others had, that the English king, in 1609, had any right to assume jurisdiction beyond the springs of her rivers. She made no account of the annulment of her charter in 1624, and claimed that the recognition of her "ancient bound " by the English Commonwealth in 1651 dis- posed of that objection. She recalled how, in 1749, the royal instructions to Governor Gooeh had recognized both banks of the Ohio as being " within our colony of Virginia." When , England got her real title to the trans-Alleghany regions in 1763, she called it merely a confirmation of her immutable charter. She pronounced solemnly, by legislative enaetment, that the Indiana deed of 1768 was void. She saw no reason why Trent and the traders should be recompensed for losses in the Pontiac war any more than others who suffered damage from the same cause, and if the traders were to be favored, she held that Pennsylvania and not Virginia should reeoup them, since they belonged to that colony. George Mason, in her behalf, charged Sir William Johnson "with mysterious and clandestine conduct " in furthering that grant, for Virginia had already preempted the very land from the Indians at the treaty of Lancaster. She saw nothing in the Walpole grant of 1772 as sustaining the rights of the crown against her claims. She saw no way for the Republic to maintain its rights at the future


167


THE CONFEDERATION.


peace against the limits of the Quebec Bill, but in standing squarely upon Virginia's chartered rights.


We have seen how soon the frontiersmen began to make inroads on this royal reservation of 1763, and how the rights of the Iroquois and Cherokees, as affiliated with the northern and southern colonies respectively, were played off against each other. If the New York elaim, as derived from the Iroquois, was illusory, Franklin could, on the other hand, charge Vir- ginia with inventing the claims of the Cherokees to the Ken- tucky region in order to bolster up her charter right. In a draft of an act of confederation for the colonies, when war had become inevitable, Franklin had, in 1775, aimed to bring the claims of Virginia to a tribunal. In this draft he made all disputes as to bounds between colonies referable to Congress. In it he also gave to that body the same right which he had recognized earlier to be in Parliament, to plant new colonies in this western wilderness. The next year, June 29, 1776, Vir- ginia, in adopting her new State Constitution, which the war had foreed upon her, stood squarely by her old pretensions of jurisdiction in this region, with the right of establishing one or more States within her charter limits.


A few weeks later, in Congress, John Dickinson presented (July 12, 1776) the articles for confederation in a new shape, destined in the main to be those under which the States finally achieved their independence. The draft provided that no lands could be purchased of the natives, either by any colony or by an individual, before the limits of the eolonies westward were adjudicated upon, and that, when these limits were determined, the confederacy was to guarantee such bounds to the colonies, and no purchases were to be made beyond them except by the United States for the general benefit of all the States. It dis- tinetly provided that Congress should have the power to settle intercolonial boundary disputes ; to " limit those bounds which by charter, or proclamation, or under any pretense, are said to extend to the South Sea; " and to "assign territories for new colonies and ascertain their boundaries," which may be admitted to the confederacy by the assent of nine States. Canada, at the same time, could join the confederacy at her own pleasure. These articles, if adopted and assented to, practically made Congress the arena in which Virginia must contend for her pretensions.


168


A YEAR OF SUSPENSE.


While this matter was still in abeyance, Congress made a dis- tinet assertion of its control over these western regions by resolving on September 16, 1776, to grant lands over the moun- tains as bounties to the Continental troops. This meant recom- pensing Virginia for yielding for this purpose such lands as should be selected. Maryland at onee (October 9) announeed her objection to making such payments a charge upon all the States and a benefit to one, and on November 13, 1776, Mary- land's protest to this effect was laid before Congress. The position of this dissentient State is best expressed in instructions to her delegates at a later stage of the controversy : "Policy and justice require that a country unsettled at the commence- ment of this war, elaimed by the British crown, and ceded to it by the Treaty of Paris, if wrested from the common enemy by the blood and treasure of the thirteen States, should be con- sidered as a common property, subject to be parceled out with free governments."


It was now clear that the smaller States, and those which had no such western claims, were prepared to insist upon making these trans-Alleghany lands a common source of financial sup- ply in the struggle with the mother country. Congress moved slowly in a matter which produced such variances of opinion, and it was not till October 14, 1777, that it dared even ap- proach the question. It then directed that the colonies should have a common treasury, and that there should be a system of proportionate taxation among the States to supply this treasury. The next day, October 15, 1777. Maryland tried to force the issue by proposing that Congress should have the power to set a western limit to the States elaiming to the Mississippi, so as to create a public domain beyond. Maryland stood alone in the vote. Within a fortnight, the larger States combined (October 27) to make it a provision of the impending aet of confederation that no State without its consent should be stripped of its territory for the benefit of the United States. Within three weeks, the Dickinson draft, with all the land amendments which Virginia had insisted upon, was adopted (November 15, 1777). subject to the ratification of the States.


It was soon apparent that the confederation would not have the support of Maryland without some acknowledgment of the rights of all the States in these western lands. By early summer


169


VIRGINIA LAND OFFICE.


in the following year (June, 1778), Maryland, with Delaware, New Jersey, and Rhode Island acting mainly in accord with her, tried to induce Congress to remove difficulties by voting that commissioners should determine the limits of the States claiming to the Mississippi, and that the fee of the old " crown lands," under the proclamation of 1763, should belong to the United States, while the original claimant States should retain jurisdiction. Congress declined to accede to the proposition, and on July 10, 1778, appealed to the hesitating States to accept the articles, and leave the settlement of their demands to the future.


It soon became known that Virginia had substantiated her claim north of the Ohio by the success of Clark, and in October she set up, as we have seen, a civil government at Kaskaskia.


Two months later, Maryland set forth the grounds of her position in refusing to accept the Act of Confederation, and the new year opened with Congress further temporizing by post- poning on January 6, 1779, the consideration of Maryland's declaration.


In May, 1779, Virginia aggressively determined to open a land office in the territory, offering the land at forty pounds the hun- dred acres, and declaring valid all her existing military grants. This again aroused Maryland, and she instructed her delegates to lay before Congress her protest against this project. This forced Virginia to a new rehearsal of her claims. There was with some an attempt to throw disrepute upon Maryland's will- ingness to exempt from her general contention such tracts as had been " granted to, surveyed for, or purchased by individuals before the commencement of the present war," by tracing it to a purpose to save a grant between the Wabash and the Illinois, which, in 1773, had been made to Governor Johnston of Mary- land in conjunction with Dunmore and Tryon.


Some of these earlier grantees did unite in September, 1779, in presenting a memorial to Congress, in which the representa- tives of the Indiana and Vandalia companies were included. In this paper they asked to have Virginia's purpose of disposing of these lands in October prevented. This led to a vote asking the States to make no grants of such lands while the war lasted. Virginia defended her right to open a land office, but the mo- tion prevailed (October 30) despite the opposition of herself and North Carolina.


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A YEAR OF SUSPENSE.


The manifestly increasing antagonism to Virginia's extreme claim did not prevent her still making grants (October) of these same lands to her soldiers, and taking steps to open new rontes over the Cumberland Mountains. As confidence in- creased in the ultimate solution of the question against the Virginia pretensions, Delaware had already accepted the Act of Confederation in February, 1779, and in November New Jersey did the same, but both States had done it under protest. Near the end of the year (December 14, 1779), Virginia's remon- stranees grew milder. She was willing to listen to "just and reasonable propositions for removing ostensible causes of delay to the complete ratification of the Confederation," and to grant lands within her charter bounds to the continental line of any or all the States. In obtaining this concession, Maryland had scored a triumph.


Such was the condition of the controversy in Congress, when, in the opening of 1780, it had become generally recognized that the future trans-Alleghany extension, both of the claimant States and of the new Republic, depended on the success of the military and pioneer movements on each side of the Ohio. Haldimand had begun a system of canals round the rapids of the St. Lawrence, which did much to facilitate pushing of sup- plies to his western posts, but British attempts to enforce the pretension of the Quebee Bill on the north of the Ohio, in efforts directed from Detroit and Mackinac, had so far failed, notwithstanding the sympathy of the Indian tribes. South of the Ohio the adventurous pioneers had strengthened their hold upon the regions of Kentucky and Tennessee in spite of British and savage raids from north of the Ohio, and threats of the British agents, Stuart and Cameron, from the side of Florida. The frontiersmen's success had also so far put an obstacle in the way of the Spanish pretensions, which France was anxions to advance.


The Americans had little more than a hope of holding their western positions north of the Ohio. The expectation of ad- vancing on Detroit was for the present, at least, kept in abey- ance. On the British side the plans of the ministry, committed in the north to Haldimand, were thus in the hands of one who had no hesitation in espousing all that the Quebec Bill intended.


171


ST. LOUIS THREATENED.


The plan of Germain to maintain a line of communication be- tween Canada and Florida had indeed been checked by the precipitate action of Galvez at New Orleans, but it did not, in their ignorance of the Spanish successes, seem altogether imprac- ticable to Sinclair, or to his superior officer at Quebec. The commandant at Mackinac was not informed of the fall of Natchez till midsummer (July 30), when the tidings came from Haldimand, who had learned of the misfortune but six weeks before.


Thus in the dark, and supposing that Brigadier Campbell, leaving Pensacola, would enter the Mississippi some time in May, Sinclair, when in February the days were palpably length- ening, sent messages to the Sioux and other tribes to unite in the early spring of 1780 at the Wisconsin portage, and to bring with them supplies of corn for a campaign. At the same time he urged Wabasha, his Sioux ally, " a man of uncommon abili- ties," to move with his " people undebauched and addicted to war " down the Mississippi towards Natchez, there to aet as circumstances might require.


To divert the rebel attention from this main part of the cam- paign, Haldimand had instructed (February 12) De Peyster, at Detroit, to arouse the Wabash Indians, and " amuse " Clark, or drive him from the Ohio rapids, "otherwise the Indian country will be open to the continual incursions of the rebels, and safe communication will be formed between Fort Pitt and the Mississippi." The British authorities were soon to learn, if they had not already been informed, by an intercepted letter, of Clark's purpose to build a new fort on the Mississippi.


It was March (1780) when the Spaniards at St. Louis learned of Sinclair's plans, and a few weeks later, in April, some boats, with supplies which Gratiot had carried up to Prairie du Chien, were captured by the approaching band.


St. Louis was now a town of a hundred and twenty houses, principally of stone, with a population of perhaps eight hun- dred, mainly French, and a hundred and fifty negroes. On May 26, 1780, a force, thought to have comprised about nine hundred Indians, fell upon some farmers, who incautiously - for the enemy's approach was known - had gone beyond the protection of the stockade. Sinclair had hardly feared that the savages would fail in an assault; but he was not so confi-


172


A YEAR OF SUSPENSE.


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clent in holding the place, if once taken. But no assault fol- lowed, partly because of the usual savage unwillingness to attack a post which had been forewarned, and partly because of the lukewarmness, if not insincerity, of Calve and the other French leaders of the Indians. The break eame when the Saes and Foxes, alleged to be under Calvé's influence, swerved from the task.


It is thought that the whole force, which Sinclair had organ- ized. consisted of perhaps fifteen hundred warriors with Euro- pean leaders, while a body of other savages with a number of


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SINCLAIR'S EXPEDITION.


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Illinois and Missouri, Albany, 1823. KEY : a. line of works. b. tower. c. demi-lunar. f. gates. terian meeting-house. n. market. o. Missouri bank. p. ferry. q. old windmill. r. ox-mill.


French traders, inspired by Sinclair's promise to reserve to them the traffic of the Missouri valley, had been led by Langlade by way of the Chicago portage. This contingent was expected to fall upon Kaskaskia in case of success at St. Louis, and to place the Illinois villages under contribution, and to send sup- plies from them to Green Bay and Mackinac, - the support of which post was at this time creating much complaint in the communications of Germain. Langlade had for a guide a certain Monsieur Durrand, who had been found with a quantity of continental money in his possession, and to secure his fidelity Sinclair had taken possession of all his property.




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