m the
lips of the venerable merchant stories of Pontiac, Saint-Ange, Croghan,
and all the western worthies, red and white, of two full generations.
"Not all the magic of a dream," the historian remarks, "nor the
enchantments of an Arabian tale, could outmatch the waking realities
which were to rise upon the vision of Pierre Chouteau. Where, in his
youth, he had climbed the woody bluff, and looked abroad on prairies
dotted with bison, he saw, with the dim eye of his old age, the land
darkened for many a furlong with the clustered roofs of the western
metropolis. For the silence of the wilderness, he heard the clang and
turmoil of human labor, the din of congregated thousands; and where the
great river rolls down through the forest, in lonely grandeur, he saw
the waters lashed into foam beneath the prows of panting steamboats,
flocking to the broad levee."

Pontiac's war long kept the English from taking actual possession of
the western country. Meanwhile Saint-Ange, commanding the remnant of the
French garrison at Fort Chartres, resisted as best he could the demands
of the redskins for assistance against their common enemy and hoped
daily for the appearance of an English force to relieve him his
difficult position. In the spring of 1764 an English officer, Major
Loftus, with a body of troops lately employed in planting English
authority in "East Florida" and "West Florida," set out from New Orleans
to take possession of the up-river settlements. A few miles above the
mouth of the Red, however, the boats were fired on, without warning,
from both banks of the stream, and many of the men were killed or
wounded. The expedition retreated down the river with all possible
speed. This display of faintheartedness won the keen ridicule of the
French, and the Governor, D'Abadie, with mock magnanimity, offered
an escort of French soldiery to protect the party on its way back to
Pensacola! Within a few months a second attempt was projected, but news
of the bad temper of the Indians caused the leader, Captain Pittman, to
turn back after reaching New Orleans.

Baffled in this direction, the new commander-in-chief, General Gage,
resolved to accomplish the desired end by an expedition from Fort Pitt.
Pontiac, however, was known to be still plotting vengeance at that time,
and it seemed advisable to break the way for the proposed expedition
by a special mission to placate the Indians. For this delicate task
Sir William Johnson selected