CHAPTER X.

The County of Illinois-Officers and Government-LaBalme's and Brady's Expeditions-Attack on St. Louis and Cahokia-The Spanish Expedition against St. Joseph-Fort Jefferson-Close of the War and Termination of Virginia Control.

THE

HE importance of the brilliant success which crowned the well-laid and ably-executed plans of Col. Clark can hardly be over-estimated. A well-appointed British garrison remaining in possession of Vincennes might have rendered impossible the retention by the Americans of the captured posts in the Illinois. But in the hands of the "big-knives," whose valor the Indians. had learned to respect, the situation was reversed and the conquest of the territory rendered comparatively secure.*

The results of Clark's brief but arduous campaigns were farreaching. The importance of the conquest from a military and strategic point of view was readily recognized and appreciated. But the issue of the expedition was fraught with consequences of a weightier-even of an international character. These Thomas Jefferson was quick to perceive, and that sagacious statesman in a letter to Clark, written about the date of the inception of the expedition, after signifying his approbation of the scheme, says: "If successful, it will have an important bearing ultimately upon our northwestern boundary." Time justified the correctness of the prediction. Had the undertaking never been conceived, or had it failed, American possession and control of the great Northwest might never have been realized, and the treaty of 1783 might have named as the western boundary of the new nation the ridge of the Alleghanies rather than the channel of the Mississippi.

The Mississippi Valley lying north of the Ohio was claimed by Virginia under and by virtue of ancient charters. The re* The Virginia House of Delegates manifested their appreciation of Col. Clark's services by tendering him a unanimous vote of thanks; and later he and his command received more substantial reward in the donation of a tract of 150,000 acres of land.

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