Clark’s fears of the Indians were only too well grounded. During the summer, the American settlers were compelled to retire to a fort at Bellefontaine, and four of their number were killed. At the same time, about twenty Americans were killed about Vincennes. The French were still safe from Indian attacks and were very angry because the Americans complained of existing conditions.(94) The strife between the French and the Americans at Vincennes, over the proper relations of the whites to the Indians, became intense. The French contended that the Indians should be allowed to come and go freely, while the Americans held that it was unsafe to grant such freedom. At last, upon the occasion of the killing of an Indian by the Americans, after they had been attacked by the Indians, the French citizens ordered all persons, who had not permission to settle from the government under which they last resided, to leave at once and at their own risk. The French told the Americans plainly that they were not wanted, and that they, the French, did not know whether the place belonged to the United States or to Great Britain.(95) This last assertion was probably true. The British Michilimackinac Company had a large trading-house at Cahokia for supplying the Indians, they held Detroit, and their machinations among the Indians were constant. The feeling of all intelligent Americans in Illinois must have been expressed by John Edgar when he wrote that the Illinois country was totally lost unless a government should soon be established.(96) Clark wrote a vigorous letter to the people at Vincennes, telling them that unless they stopped quarreling military rule would be established; that the government established under Virginia was still in force, having been confirmed by Congress upon the acceptance of the Virginia deed of cession, and that the court, if depleted, should be filled by election.(97) In one respect, even during this trying period, the western country gave promise of its future growth. There was a large crop. Flour and pork, quoted, strangely enough, together, sold at the Falls of Ohio at twelve shillings per hundred pounds, while Indian corn sold at nine pence per bushel.(98)