The military troubles continued. The commander at Vincennes reported his troops as destitute and unpaid. Richard Winston, of Kaskaskia, who had succeeded Todd as head of the civil government in Illinois, was arrested by military force and put in jail. The prisoner claimed that the proceedings were wholly irregular and that he was unacquainted with the nature of the charge against him.(76) The next year, he was accused of treason, the accuser declaring that Winston had proposed to turn Illinois over to Spain, but that his proposal had been despised by the Spanish commandant.(77) Upon Winston was also laid the chief blame for the discontent of the French, he being charged with having told Montgomery that the French were strangers to liberty and must be ruled with a rod of iron or the bayonet, and that if he wanted anything he must send his guards and take it by force; while, at the same time, he told the French that the military was a band of robbers and came to Illinois for plunder.(78) However, numerous and well-founded as the accusations might be, both accused and accuser laid their claims for salary before the Virginia Board of Commissioners for the Settlement of Western Accounts.(79) Even the notorious Col. Montgomery presented before this board his defence, which consisted of a recital of his meritorious deeds, others being omitted.(80) Another visitor to the Board of Commissioners was Francis Carbonneaux, prothonotary and notary public for the Illinois country. Although he came to get some private affairs settled, his chief mission was to lay before the Board the confusion in Illinois, and the Board correctly surmised that if Virginia did not afford relief the messenger would proceed to Congress.(81) It was but natural that at this time, the people of Illinois should be in doubt as to whom to present their petition, because Virginia had offered to cede her western lands to Congress, although the terms of cession were not yet agreed upon. Carbonneaux complained that Illinois was wholly without law or government; that the magistrates, from indolence or sinister views, had for some time been lax in the execution of their duties, and were now altogether without authority; that crimes of the greatest enormity might be committed with impunity, and a man be murdered in his own house and no one regard it; that there was neither sheriff nor prison; and to crown the general confusion, that many persons had made large purchases of three and four hundred leagues, and were endeavoring to have themselves established lords of the soil, as some had done in Canada, and to have settlements made on these purchases, composed of a set of men wholly subservient to their views. The Spanish traded freely in Illinois, but strictly prohibited Illinois from trading in Spanish dominions. Complaint was also made that the Board of Commissioners had not settled the Illinois accounts in peltry according to the known rule and practice,