he British interest,
resident at that time among the Chickasaws, May 25, 1779, etc.]
Flat-boats from the Illinois went down to New Orleans, and keel-boats
returned from that city with arms and munitions, or were sent up to
Pittsburg [Footnote: The history of the early navigation of the Ohio and
Mississippi begins many years before the birth of any of our western
pioneers, when the French went up and down them. Long before the
Revolutionary war occasional hunters, in dug-outs, or settlers going to
Natchez in flat-boats, descended these rivers, and from Pittsburg craft
were sent to New Orleans to open negotiations with the Spaniards as soon
as hostilities broke out; and ammunition was procured from New Orleans
as soon as Independence was declared.]; and the following spring Clark
built a fort on the east bank of the Mississippi below the Ohio.
[Footnote: In lat. 36 deg. 30'; it was named Fort Jefferson. Jefferson MSS.,
1st Series, Vol. 19. Clark's letter.] It was in the Chickasaw territory,
and these warlike Indians soon assaulted it, making a determined effort
to take it by storm, and though they were repulsed with very heavy
slaughter, yet, to purchase their neutrality, the Americans were glad to
abandon the fort.

Clark Moves to the Falls of Ohio.

Clark himself, towards the end of 1779, took up his abode at the Falls
of the Ohio, where he served in some sort as a shield both for the
Illinois and for Kentucky, and from whence he hoped some day to march
against Detroit. This was his darling scheme, which he never ceased to
cherish. Through no fault of his own, the day never came when he could
put it in execution.

He was ultimately made a brigadier-general of the Virginian militia, and
to the harassed settlers in Kentucky his mere name was a tower of
strength. He was the sole originator of the plan for the conquest of the
northwestern lands, and, almost unaided, he had executed his own scheme.
For a year he had been wholly cut off from all communication with the
home authorities, and had received no help of any kind. Alone, and with
the very slenderest means, he had conquered and held a vast and
beautiful region, which but for him would have formed part of a foreign
and hostile empire [Footnote: It is of course impossible to prove that
but for Clark's conquest the Ohio would have been made our boundary in
1783, exactly as it is impossible to prove that but for Wolfe the
English would not have taken Quebec. But wh