Not to be deterred, he visited Governor Patrick Henry, who was at home sick, and impressed upon him the necessity of protecting the settlements in Kentucky. He then went before the executive council of the state and asked for 500 pounds of gunpowder to be used in defense of the stations. The council agreed to lend this to the colonists as friends, but said they could not give it to them as fellow citizens. At this Clark refused to accept the gunpowder and intimated intentions of appealing for assistance elsewhere, saying that, "A country that is not worth defending is not worth having." This reply caused the recall of Clark to the presence of the council, and the gunpowder was conveyed to Pittsburgh and delivered to Clark for the colonists. At the next session of the legislature, through the splendid services of this same useful citizen, the territory which later became our commonwealth was erected into Kentucky County, of Virginia. From this time on Clark was, by common consent, the moving master spirit in all the daring plans of his adopted state. With a seeing eye and an unsurpassed judgment he concluded that the Indian invasions were inspired by the British and that to stop this terrible warfare the colonists should strike at the fountain head. Accordingly he laid and perfected his plans for attacking the posts of Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Saint Vincents (now Vincennes). Virginia voted to defray the expenses and gave Clark two sets of instructions, one public, ordering him to proceed to the defense of Kentucky, the other private, ordering an attack on Kaskaskia. Descending the Ohio on flatboats or pirogues, he landed, May, 1778, three companies of troops and several families on Corn Island, near the Falls of the Ohio. He drilled his raw recruits, reënforced with volunteers from the country, and a few weeks later, amid a total eclipse of the sun, set out with his frail fleet of four companies of one hundred and thirty-five fighting men. [Illustration: "On the night of July 4, they captured Kaskaskia."] Landing on Owen's Island near the mouth of the Tennessee River, and striking across the country from Fort Massacre, or Massac, he began that wonderful march which won him undying fame. Meeting a party of hunters recently from Kaskaskia, Clark secured from them important intelligence and an offer to guide his forces where by a sudden surprise they believed the place could be easily captured. On the night of July 4, he took the town of two hundred and fifty inhabitants without the loss of one drop of blood.