.

"My friends and neighbors," he said in a firm voice, "there is scarce a
man standing among you to-day who has not suffered at the hands of
savages. Some of you have seen wives and children killed before your
eyes--or dragged into captivity. None of you can to-day call the home
for which he has risked so much his own. And who, I ask you, is to blame
for this hideous war? Whose gold is it that buys guns and powder and
lead to send the Shawnee and the Iroquois and Algonquin on the warpath?"

He paused, and a hoarse murmur of anger ran along the ranks.

"Whose gold but George's, by the grace of God King of Great Britain and
Ireland? And what minions distribute it? Abbott at Kaskaskia, for one,
and Hamilton at Detroit, the Hair Buyer, for another!"

When he spoke Hamilton's name his voice was nearly drowned by
imprecations.

"Silence!" cried Clark, sternly, and they were silent. "My friends, the
best way for a man to defend himself is to maim his enemy. One year
since, when you did me the honor to choose me Commander-in-chief of your
militia in Kentucky, I sent two scouts to Kaskaskia. A dozen years ago
the French owned that place, and St. Vincent, and Detroit, and the people
there are still French. My men brought back word that the French feared
the Long Knives, as the Indians call us. On the first of October I went
to Virginia, and some of you thought again that I had deserted you. I
went to Williamsburg and wrestled with Governor Patrick Henry and his
council, with Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Mason and Mr. Wythe. Virginia had no
troops to send us, and her men were fighting barefoot with Washington
against the armies of the British king. But the governor gave me twelve
hundred pounds in paper, and with it I have raised the little force that
we have here. And with it we will carry the war into Hamilton's country.
On the swift waters of this great river which flows past us have come
tidings to-day, and God Himself has sent them. To-morrow would have been
too late. The ships and armies of the French king are on their way
across the ocean to help us fight the tyrant, and this is the news that
we bear to the Kaskaskias. When they hear this, the French of those
towns will not fight against us. My friends, we are going to conquer an
empire for liberty, and I can look onward," he cried in a burst of
inspired eloquence, sweeping his arm to the northward toward the forests
on the far side of the Ohio, "I can look onward to the day