While the war was being carried forward on the eastern borders of the States, and the people suffered grievously from the natural consequences of the prolonged struggle, the spirit of enterprise was no less alive in the remoter provinces, and adventurers were advancing towards that Great West which has ever been so attractive to the American mind. As had been so often the case before, the restlessness of the Western Indians led now to the conquest of their territory. It was reported to congress that the Indians of the Ohio had been stimulated to hostility by Hamilton, the British commandant at Detroit, and in consequence it was determined to send an expedition against that post; but before this was done, one still more important was accomplished by George Rogers Clarke, a young backwoodsman of Kentucky. Clarke was a man of great sagacity; and having come to the conclusion that the best way of putting an end to Indian hostilities was to destroy the sources whence they derived encouragement and support, and having correctly ascertained that these border Indians were not merely the tools of the British, but that great numbers amongst them were well-inclined towards the Americans, he proposed in December, 1779, to the executive council of Virginia, a plan for the reduction of the British posts of Detroit, Vincennes and Kaskaskia, all founded, as we may remember, by the French in the days of their American prosperity. The governor and council approving of Clarke’s plan, afforded him such facilities as he required for its accomplishment. Early the following year he enlisted 200 men for three months, and, accompanied by thirteen emigrant families, descended the Ohio to the Falls, where the emigrants parted company and settled themselves in Corn Island, the little band of warriors thus dropping, as it were, by the way the seeds of civilisation and domestic life. Again Clarke embarked on the river, and advanced to within sixty miles of its mouth, where, hiding his boats, he marched by land to Kaskaskia, which he reached on the evening of July 5th. The march had been difficult, and having long been short of food, they were on the point of starvation, but the town and fort being taken by surprise yielded to the famished men without a struggle. M. Rocheblave, the British commandant, was taken in his bed, and not a drop of blood was shed. The inhabitants were mostly French, and the news of the French alliance with the Americans, and the respect shown by the conqueror to life, property and religion, disposed the inhabitants to be satisfied, if not pleased, with the change. The papers of the governor, among which it was suspected were orders from Hamilton to excite the Indians to hostility, were immediately either destroyed by his wife or concealed among her clothes, for “the conqueror, as a gallant son of Virginia, would not tarnish the fame of his state by an insult to a female;” therefore the papers remained undiscovered.