or collected at
such points as Galena or Prairie du Chien. "This was a period of great
suffering at Galena. The weather was inclement and two or three thousand
persons driven suddenly in, with scant provisions, without ammunition or
weapons encamped in the open air, or cloth tents which were but little
better, were placed in a very disagreeable and critical position."(333)
The prompt action of Governor Lewis Cass, of Michigan, averted what would
in all probability have been a bloody war, if prompt action had not been
taken.(334)

To September 30, 1819, the record of land sales in Illinois was as
follows:

Acres Unsold. Acres Sold. Price.
Shawneetown 4,561,920 562,296 $1,153,897
Kaskaskia 2,188,800 407,027 1,781,773
Edwardsville 2,625,960 394,730 795,531(335)

The balances unpaid by purchasers of public lands steadily increased from
1813 to 1819 until on September 30, 1819, there was due from purchasers of
land in the area of the old Northwest Territory nearly ten million
dollars.(336) An increase would have resulted merely from an increased
sale of public lands under the credit system, but it is also true that the
difficulty of collecting the unpaid balances became so great that the
government at last abolished the credit system, by the act of April 24,
1820. The act provided that after July 1, 1820, no credit whatever should
be given to the purchasers of public lands; that land might be sold in
either sections, half-sections, quarter-sections, or eighth-sections; that
the minimum price should be reduced from two dollars to one dollar and
twenty-five cents per acre; and that reverted lands should be offered at
auction before being offered at private sale.(337) At least two of the
provisions of this act had long been desired by Illinois in common with
other frontier regions: the reduction of the minimum price and the sale in
smaller tracts. Under the new law a man with one hundred dollars could buy
eighty acres of land, while previously the same man would have had to pay
eighty of his one hundred dollars as the first payment on one hundred and
sixty acres, the smallest tract then sold. The great danger had been that
the second, third, and fourth payments could not be made. In Illinois,
before July 1, 1820, there had been sold 1,593,247.53 acres of the public
land at an average price of about $2.02 per acre. Some of this reverted
f