The inhabitants of St. Louis were in a critical situation. With evidence of treachery among the officers, who were Spanish; the place invaded by a force nearly double to the whole population, men, women and children; and these invaders infuriated with the spirit of war and plunder, what could they expect but a general massacre! But after killing and scalping twenty persons in the field and prairie, and meeting with such determined resistance at the gates, the Indians retired suddenly, and refused to coöperate with their Canadian allies, who kept themselves at a safe distance. The cause of this sudden and unexpected retreat has been a mystery. The most probable solution is the tradition among the French inhabitants, that the Indians were told they were going on a war party to fight the Spaniards; but when they discovered the defenders of the town were all Frenchmen, and recognized amongst them some of their personal friends, who had lived and traded in their villages; and that they had been deceived by British agents, they withdrew in ill-humor with their employers. Divers misstatements of this assault have been handed down by writers and oral tradition. A popular error has been propagated, that Colonel Clark was at Cahokia, (some say Kaskaskia) and suddenly appeared on the bank of the Mississippi, opposite the town with a strong force. Colonel Clark left the Illinois country with all the men whom he could persuade to re-enlist, the preceding February, went down the Mississippi, and at the date of the attack was establishing fort Jefferson, below the mouth of the Ohio. From thence he traveled on foot with a single companion through the wilderness to Harrodsburg in Kentucky. The traditional fact of his giving information to Governor Leyba, in 1779, of the projected invasion, and the offer of aid, has caused this error. The register of the old Catholic church in St. Louis of the funeral obsequies of the persons massacred, furnishes incontestible evidence that the attack was on May 26th, 1780. Aware that a report of his treasonable conduct had been forwarded to the Governor General at New Orleans, fearful of the consequences, and unable to sustain the scorn and indignation heaped upon him, Governor Leyba died shortly after the attack; having poisoned himself, as the creditable report was. Cartabona, his deputy, performed the functions of the office until the next year, when Don Francisco Cruzat, the predecessor of Leyba, and who had been supplanted by him in 1778, returned and assumed the command a second time. In a few years after an important change was made in the government of Upper Louisiana, by the appointment of a commandant-general, or governor for that province, and a commandant, or lieutenant-governor for each district. The commandant-general was Don Carlos Dehault Delassus, and the lieut. governor of St. Louis district was an intelligent French gentleman of liberal principles, M. Zenon Trudeau.