arter, remarking
"accustomed to mediocrity, we do not wish for wealth but for mere
competency." [Footnote: _Do_., July 26, 1787.] Of course the
"submissiveness" and the light-heartedness of the French did not prevent
their being also fickle; and their "docility" was varied by fits of
violent quarrelling with their American neighbors and among themselves.
But the quarrels of the Creoles were those of children, compared with
the ferocious feuds of the Americans.

Sometimes the trouble was of a religious nature. The priest at
Vincennes, for instance, bitterly assailed the priest at Cahokia,
because he married a Catholic to a Protestant; while all the people of
the Cahokia church stoutly supported their pastor in what he had done.
[Footnote: _Do_., p. 85.] This Catholic priest was Clark's old friend
Gibault. He was suffering from poverty, due to his loyal friendship to
the Americans; for he had advanced Clark's troops both goods and
peltries, for which he had never received payment. In a petition to
Congress he showed how this failure to repay him had reduced him to
want, and had forced him to sell his two slaves, who otherwise would
have kept and tended him in his old age. [Footnote: American State
Papers, Public Lands, I., Gibault's Memorial, May I, 1790.]

The Federal General Harmar, in the fall of 1787, took formal possession,
in person, of Vincennes and the Illinois towns; and he commented upon
the good behavior of the Creoles, and their respect for the United
States Government, and laid stress upon the fact that they were entirely
unacquainted with what the Americans called liberty, and could best be
governed in the manner to which they were accustomed--"by a commandant
with a few troops." [Footnote: St. Clair Papers, Harmar's Letters,
August 7th and November 24th, 1787.]

Contrast between the French and Americans.

The American pioneers, on the contrary, were of all people the least
suited to be governed by a commandant with troops. They were much better
stuff out of which to make a free, self-governing nation, and they were
much better able to hold their own in the world, and to shape their own
destiny; but they were far less pleasant people to govern. To this day
the very virtues of the pioneers--not to speak of their faults--make it
almost impossible for them to get on with an ordinary army officer,
accustomed as he is to rule absolutely, though justly and with a sort of
severe kindness. Army officers on t