inois; and the chief of the Sioux
was to attack St. Genevieve and Kaskaskia.(62)

The expedition against St. Louis and the Illinois towns, as well as in its
larger aspect, was not successful. It was impossible to keep it secret and
as early as March, an attack was expected. Spanish and Americans joined in
repulsing the intruders. Another potent element in the failure was the
treachery of some of the traders who acted as leaders for the British,
notably that of Ducharme and Calve, who had a lucrative trade and regarded
the prospect of increasing it by the proposed attack as doubtful. In the
last week of May, 1780, the attack on St. Louis was made. Several persons
were killed, but the place was not taken. Cahokia was beleaguered for
three days, but it was so well defended by George Rogers Clark that on the
third night the enemy withdrew, when Clark hastened to intercept the
expedition against Kentucky, while the Illinois and Spanish troops pursued
the retreating enemy and burned the towns of the Sauk and Fox Indians. The
British were much chagrined at the result of the expedition, yet they
resolved to continue their plan of using Indians and sending out several
parties at once.(63)

An expedition which gains much interest from the character of its leader
was that of Col. Augustin Mottin de la Balme. This man had been
commissioned quartermaster of gendarmerie, by the authorities of
Versailles, in 1766; had come to America and been recommended by Silas
Deane and Benjamin Franklin to the president of Congress, John Hancock, as
a man who would be of service in training cavalry; had been breveted
lieutenant-colonel of cavalry, in May, 1777; made inspector of cavalry,
with the rank of colonel, in July following; and had resigned in October
of the same year. The next year, a public notice, in French with English
and German translations, announced that carpenters, bakers, and some other
classes of laborers could find shelter and employment at a workshop
established by La Balme, twenty-eight miles from Philadelphia.(64) In the
summer of 1780, La Balme went from Fort Pitt to the Illinois country.

A contemporary who writes from Vincennes speaks of La Balme as a French
colonel. He was regarded by the Americans with much suspicion. Capt.
Dalton, the American commander at Vincennes, whose character was later
much questioned, allowed him to go among the Indians,(65) whereupon La
Balme advised them to send word to the tribes which Clar