he Illinois country or at
Vincennes, and who had since moved from the one to the other. The same
donation was to be made to all persons who had moved away, if they should
return within five years. Such persons should also have confirmed to them
the land they originally held. This was intended to bring back persons who
had gone to the Spanish side of the Mississippi. Grants previously made by
courts having no authority should be confirmed to persons who had made
improvements, to an extent not exceeding four hundred acres to any one
person. As these lands had in some cases been repeatedly sold, the parties
making the improvements were frequently guiltless of any knowledge of
fraud. The Cahokia commons were confirmed to that village. One hundred
acres was to be granted to each militiaman enrolled on August 1, 1790, and
who had received no other grant.(150) This act throws considerable light
on the causes of discontent then prevailing among the settlers and on the
conditions to which immigrants came.

This same spring, about two hundred and fifty of the inhabitants of
Vincennes had gone to settle at New Madrid.(151) It is not strange that
the act of March 3, 1791, made provisions intended to induce the Americans
who had emigrated to the Spanish possessions to return. The history of the
threatened Spanish aggression upon the western part of the United States
is known in essence to anyone who has made the slightest special study of
the period at which it was at its height. Morgan's scheme for a purchase
of land in Illinois was not carried out, and he turned his attention to
peopling his settlement at New Madrid. Down the Mississippi to New Orleans
seemed the natural route for Illinois commerce. Slavery flourished
unmolested west of the Mississippi. In 1794, Baron de Carondolet gave
orders to the governor of Natchez to incite the Chickasaw Indians to expel
the Americans from Fort Massac. The governor refused to obey the order,
because Fort Massac had been occupied by the Americans in pursuance of a
request by the Spanish representative at the capital of the United States
that the president would put a stop to the proposed expedition of the
French against the Spanish. The claim was advanced by Carondolet that the
Americans had no right to the land on which the fort stood, but that the
land belonged to the Chickasaws, who were independent allies of Spain. Two
other reasons given for not obeying the order were that it would preclud