Clark's agents traded as far north as Portage, in Wisconsin. At Prairie du Chien they induced Linctot, a famous French fur trader, to join the Americans. Linctot put himself at the head of a party of five hundred French and half-breed horsemen, who were of much assistance to Clark in his various movements after the capture of Vincennes. Meanwhile another large party, chiefly of Indians, assembled at Prairie du Chien in the British cause, led by three French traders, Hesse, Du Charme, and Calvé. They raided the upper Mississippi valley, capturing provisions intended for the Americans, and making a futile attack on the Spanish village of St. Louis, which was thought to be assisting Clark. Despite these military operations in Wisconsin, the English fur trade continued in full strength, with headquarters upon the Island of Mackinac, but with French agents and boatmen, whose principal dwelling places were at Green Bay and Prairie du Chien. Upon Lake Superior large canoes and bateaux were used; but upon Lake Michigan were three small sloops, the _Welcome_, the _Felicity_, and the _Archangel_, which carried supplies and furs for the traders, and made frequent cruises to see that the "Bostonians," as the French used to call the Americans, obtained no foothold upon the shore of the lake. Just before the close of the war, the British commander at Mackinac Island, Captain Patrick Sinclair, held a council with the Indians, and for a small sum purchased for himself their claims to that island and to nearly all of the land now comprising Wisconsin. But the treaty of 1783, between the British and the Americans, did not recognize this purchase, and Sinclair found that he was no longer the owner of Wisconsin. It had become, largely through the valor of Clark, and the persistence of our treaty commissioners, a part of the territory of the United States. THE RULE OF JUDGE RÉAUME By the treaty of peace with Great Britain, in 1783, the country northwest of the Ohio River was declared to be a part of the territory of the United States; but it was many years before the Americans had anything more than a nominal control of Wisconsin, which was a part of this Northwestern region. The United States was at first unable to meet all of its obligations under this treaty; hence Great Britain kept possession of the old fur trade posts on the Upper Lakes, including Mackinac, of which Wisconsin was a "dependency." A British garrison was kept at Mackinac, thus controlling the fur trade of this district, but no troops were deemed necessary within Wisconsin itself. To the few white inhabitants of the small fur trade villages of Green Bay and Prairie du Chien, there was slight evidence of any of these various changes in political ownership. Beyond the brief stay among them of Lieutenant Gorrell and his little band of redcoats, in the years 1761-63, the French and half-breeds of Wisconsin led much the same life as of old.