e permitted. Immigration was ebbing, and
the selling and settling of the newly acquired territory was wholly out
of the question so long as the purchasers could not be assured of
protection. The display of a strong force of regulars and mounted
militia, the establishment of a strong position on the borders of the
Indian country, would not only dishearten the followers of the Prophet
and discourage further accessions to his banner, but strengthen the
hands of those Miami chieftains who still preserved their allegiance to
the United States. Any expeditionary force to be employed was to be
headed by the Governor himself, who had taken a very active part in the
training of the frontier militiamen, and who now offered his services
voluntarily and without compensation.

The Federal authorities moved slowly. It was evident that the old
indifference as to the welfare of the western world still prevailed.
Some strange hallucination led the Washington authorities to believe
that friendly relations might be sustained with a band of savages who
were carried away by a religious frenzy, and who were daily giving ear
to British whisperings. The consequences were that a party of mounted
dragoons organized by Judge Benjamin Parke to protect Vincennes and who
made a demand for pistols and swords, did not receive their equipment
until late in the following spring, and then the swords were found to be
of iron; that no orders were issued to form a friendly alliance with the
Miami chiefs, and hold them steadfast; that the small detachment of one
hundred and twenty or one hundred and thirty regulars under Captain
Cross did not arrive until the third of October, and that no
instructions were received from the government, until all forage for the
horses had disappeared from the woods, and it was too late in the season
to undertake an expedition.

With the opening of the spring of 1811, the insolence and effrontery of
the Shawnee leaders measurably increased. About the first of April
twelve horses were stolen from the settlement of Busseron, about twenty
miles above Vincennes. The pillaging bands of the Potawatomi, directly
under the influence of the Prophet, were committing robberies and
murders on the Illinois and Missouri frontiers. In the issue of August
18th, 1810, of the _Western Sun_, of Vincennes, appeared this paragraph:
"Extract of a letter from a gentleman at St. Louis, to his friend in
this place, dated August 3rd, 1810. 'On my retu