In the same settlement, and frequently for weeks in succession, at the cabin of Mr. Lemen, there was an Irish Methodist by the name of William Murray. His name indicates Scots descent, and he and Mr. Clark were quite intimate. Indeed, these three men claimed national affinity, for, as we have shown, Mr. Lemen’s ancestors were from the north of Ireland, where colonies from Scotland had taken possession in the seventeenth century. There was just enough diversity in their opinions, to invite controversy, and enough Christian virtue as a controlling principle to keep them within the bounds of moderation and fraternal intercourse. They attended each others meetings, and Mr. Clark preached, and exerted an influence on the young men in the settlement that has never been lost. We will now pass over a few months, till some time in the spring or summer of 1798, when Mr. Clark carried out his long cherished project of visiting the Spanish country west of the Mississippi river, and which made him in a peculiar sense _the pioneer preacher_. LOUISIANA was discovered, settled, and held in possession by France until 1762, when, by a secret treaty, it was sold to Spain by that infamous king, Louis XV, and his more infamous mistress, Madame Pompadour, and his corrupt ministry. The first permanent settlement in Upper Louisiana was commenced with the founding of St. Louis as a trading post in 1764. In 1763, an enterprising trader by the name of _Pierre Ligueste Laclede_, obtained a grant from the Director General of Louisiana, with the “necessary powers to trade with the Indians of the Missouri, and those west of the Mississippi, above the Missouri river, as far north as the St. Peters,” now Minnesota. A small hamlet had been previously established by a few French families, and called St. Genevieve, west of the Great River, and a few miles below the town of Kaskaskia, and some temporary stations made in the lead mine country, west of St. Genevieve. The Spanish authority became regularly established in Upper Louisiana, in November, 1770. Piernas, the Spanish commandant, arrived in St. Louis at that date, but there is no official document or record to show that he exercised the functions of his office previous to February, 1771. Other towns or villages were settled in the vicinity from 1769, the date of St. Charles, to the period of 1780. On the transfer of the Illinois country from France to Great Britain in 1765, many of the French inhabitants removed from that side of the river to St. Louis and St. Charles, and many more went down the river to the lower province. After Colonel George Rogers Clark had taken possession of the Illinois country, under Virginia, in 1778, he became personally acquainted and held frequent interviews with French citizens of St. Louis, and the official authorities.