ooklyn.

Seven miles below the Tennessee, on the Illinois side, we sought
relief from the blazing sun within the mouth of Seven Mile Creek,
which is cut deep through sloping banks of mud, and overhung by great
sprawling sycamores. These always interest us from the generosity of
their height and girth, and from their great variety of color-tones,
induced by the patchy scaling of the bark--soft grays, buffs, greens,
and ivory whites prevailing. When sufficiently refreshed in this cool
bower, we ventured once more into the fierce light of the open river,
and two miles below shot into the broader and more inviting Massac
Creek (928 miles), just as, of old, George Rogers Clark did with his
little flotilla, when _en route_ to capture Kaskaskia. Clark, in his
Journal written long after the event, said that this creek is a mile
above Fort Massac; his memory failed him--as a matter of fact, the
steep, low hill of iron-stained gravel and clay, on which the old
stronghold was built, is but two hundred yards below.[A]

The French commander who, in October, 1758, evacuated and burned Fort
Duquesne on the approach of the English army under General Forbes,
dropped down the Ohio for nearly a thousand miles, and built "a new
fort on a beautiful eminence on the north bank of the river." But
there was a fortified post on this hillock at a much earlier date
(about 1711), erected as a headquarters for missionaries, and to guard
French fur-traders from marauding Cherokees; and Pownall's map notes
one here in 1751. This fort of 1758 was but an enlarged edition of
the old. The new stronghold, with a garrison of a hundred men, was the
last built by the French upon the Ohio, and it was occupied by them
until they evacuated the country in 1763. England does not appear to
have made any attempt to repair and occupy the works then destroyed
by the French, although urged to do so by her military agents in
the West. Had they held Fort Massac, no doubt Clark's expedition to
capture the Northwest for the Americans might easily have been nipped
in the bud; as it was, the old fortress was a ruin when he "reposed"
on the banks of the creek at its feet.

When, in 1793-1794, the French agent Genet was fomenting his scheme
for capturing Louisiana and Florida from Spain, by the aid of Western
filibusters, old Fort Massac was thought of as a rallying-point and
base of supplies; but St. Clair's proclamation of March 24, 1794,
ordering General Wayne to restore