t their posts; all was disorder. Advancing,
Clark struck a theatrical pose and in a voice of command told the
merrymakers to go on with their dancing, but to take note that they now
danced, not as subjects of King George but as Virginians. Finding that
they were in no mood for further diversion, he sent them to their homes;
and all night they shivered with fear, daring not so much as to light a
candle lest they should be set upon and murdered in their beds.

This account is wholly unsupported by contemporary testimony, and it
probably sprang from the imagination of some good frontier story-teller.
It contains at least this much truth, that the settlement, after being
thrown into panic, was quickly and easily taken. Curiously enough, the
commandant was a Frenchman, Rocheblave, who had thriftily entered the
British service. True to the trust reposed in him, he protested and
threatened, but to no avail. The garrison, now much diminished, was
helpless, and the populace--British, French, and Indian alike--was not
disposed to court disaster by offering armed resistance. Hence, on the
morning after the capture the oath of fidelity was administered, and the
American flag was hoisted for the first time within view of the Father
of Waters. After dispatching word to General Carleton that he had been
compelled to surrender the post to "the self-styled Colonel, Mr. Clark,"
Rocheblave was sent as a captive to Williamsburg, where he soon broke
parole and escaped. His slaves were sold for five hundred pounds, and
the money was distributed among the troops. Cahokia was occupied without
resistance, and the French priest, Father Pierre Gibault, whose parish
extended from Lake Superior to the Ohio, volunteered to go to Vincennes
and win its inhabitants to the American cause.

Like Kaskaskia and Cahokia, the Wabash settlement had been put in charge
of a commandant of French descent. The village, however, was at the
moment without a garrison, and its chief stronghold, Fort Sackville,
was untenanted. Gibault argued forcefully for acceptance of American
sovereignty, and within two days the entire population filed into the
little church and took the oath of allegiance. The astonished Indians
were given to understand that their former "Great Father," the King of
France, had returned to life, and that they must comply promptly with
his wishes or incur his everlasting wrath for having given aid to the
despised British.

Thus without the firing o