At the time of Bowman's expedition against the Shawanese, in the preceding year a British officer, Colonel Bird, had assembled a noteworthy array at Sandusky preparatory to the invasion of Kentucky. News of the Kentucky raid up the Scioto Valley set Bird's Indians to "cooking and counselling" again, instead of acting. This year Bird's invasion materialized, and the fate of the Kentucky settlements trembled in the balance. The invading army of six hundred Indians and Canadians was armed with two pieces of artillery. There is little doubt that this army could have battered down every "station" in Kentucky and swept victoriously through the new settlements. Ruddles's station on the Licking was first menaced, and surrendered quickly. Martin's fort also capitulated. But here Bird paused in his conquest and withdrew northward, the barbarity of the Indian allies, for once at least, shocking a British commander. The real secret of the abrupt retreat lay no doubt in the fact that the increasing immigration had brought such vast numbers of people into Kentucky that Bird dared not penetrate further into the land for fear of a surprise. The gross carelessness of the newly arrived inhabitants, in not taking the precaution to build proper defenses against the Indians, undoubtedly appeared to the British commander as a sign of strength and fortitude which he did not have the courage to put to the test. As a matter of fact, he could probably have annihilated every settlement between the Ohio River and Cumberland Gap. In retaliation Kentucky sent an immense army north of the Ohio, a thousand men volunteering under Clark, the hero of Vincennes. A large Indian army was routed near the Shawanese town Pickaway. Many towns with standing crops were burned. A similar expedition from Pittsburg under General Brodhead burned crops and villages on the upper Muskingum. In return for the attack on St. Louis, the Spanish commander at that point sent an expedition against the deserted British post of St. Joseph. Upon declaring war against England in the previous year, Spain had occupied Natchez, Baton Rouge, and Mobile, which, with St. Louis, gave her command of the Mississippi. But his Catholic Majesty was building other Spanish castles in America. He desired the conquest of the British northwest, to offset the British capture of Gibraltar. This "capture" of St. Joseph led to an amusing but ominous claim on the part of Spain at the Treaty of Paris: when, with it for a pretext, the Spanish Crown claimed all lands west of a line drawn from St. Joseph southward through what is now Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. The Mississippi River boundary was, however, stoutly contended for and obtained by the American commissioners.