On June 2, 1781, Capt. McCarty was killed in a fight between the Illinois troops and some Indians on the one side and a party of Ouia Indians, who favored the British, on the other. The engagement took place near the Wabash. McCarty's papers were sent to the British, who laconically reported: “They give no information other than that himself and all the Inhabitants of the Illenoise were heartily tired of the Virginians.”[56] There is slight [pg 030] reason to doubt the truth of the statement. It is enforced by the fact that in 1781, a letter written in French to the governor of Virginia and said to be signed in the name of the inhabitants of Vincennes and to give the views of the people of Vincennes, Kaskaskia, Vermilion, Ouia, etc., declared that the French had decided to receive no troops except those sent by the king of France to aid in defeating the enemies of the country. The Indians who are friendly to the French, said the writer, would regard the coming of Virginia troops as a hostile act. A copy of the memoir sent by the French settlers to the French minister Luzerne was inclosed.[57]
On June 8, 1781, the garrison of Fort Jefferson, being without food, without credit, and for more than two years without pay, evacuated the place and withdrew to the Falls of Ohio, only to find themselves without credit in even the adjoining counties of Virginia. The troops were billeted in small parties.[58] Once again there comes a despairing plea from the feeble garrison at Vincennes, in the County of Illinois. The commander wrote: “Sir, I must inform you once more that I can not keep garrison any longer, without some speedy relief from you. My men have been 15 days upon half-allowance; there is plenty of provisions here but no credit—I can not press, being the weakest party—Some of the Gentlemen would help us, but their credit is as bad as ours, therefore, if you have not provisions send us Whisky which will answer as good an end.”[59]
In the Virginia House of Delegates, a committee for courts of justice reported that the laws which would expire at the end of the session had been examined, together with certain other laws, and that a series of resolutions had been agreed upon by the committee. Among these resolutions was the following: “Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, That the act of assembly, passed in the year 1778, entitled ‘an act, for establishing the county of Illinois, and for the more effectual protection and defence thereof;’ which was continued and amended by a subsequent act, and will expire at the end of this present session of assembly, ought to be further continued.” This report was presented and the resolutions agreed to by the House on November 22, 1781. Three days later, a bill in accordance with the resolution was presented. The consideration of the bill in a committee of the whole House was postponed from day to day until December 14, when it was considered and the question being upon engrossment and advancement to a third reading, it passed in the negative.[60] On January 5, 1782, the General Assembly adjourned, and the County of Illinois ceased to exist.[61] So far as instituting a civil government was concerned, the county was a failure. Its military history shows a mixture of American, British, French, and Spanish efforts at mastery.
The first important military operation in which the County of Illinois was concerned, after the well-known [pg 032] movements of Clark and Hamilton, was organized by the British at Detroit in compliance with a circular letter from Lord George Germain. The plan was to attack St. Louis, the French settlements near it on the east side of the Mississippi, Vincennes, Fort Nelson at the falls of the Ohio, and Kentucky. Large use was to be made of Indians, and British emissaries were busy among the tribes early in 1780. An expedition was to be led against Kentucky, while diversions should be made at outlying posts. It was thought that the reduction of St. Louis would present little difficulty, because it was known to be unfortified, and was reported to be garrisoned by but twenty men. In addition to this, it was regarded as an easy matter to use Indians against the place from the circumstance that many Indians frequented it. Less assurance was felt as to holding the place after it should have been captured, and to make this easier, it was proposed to appeal to the cupidity of the British fur traders. By the middle of February, a war-party had been sent out from Michilimackinac to arouse and act with the Sioux Indians, and early the next month another party was sent out to engage Indians to attack St. Louis and the Illinois towns. Seven hundred and fifty traders, servants, and Indians having been collected, on the 2d of May they started down the Mississippi, and at the lead mines, near the present Galena, seventeen Spanish and American prisoners were taken. In conjunction with this expedition, another, with a chosen band of Indians and French, was to advance by way of Chicago and the Illinois River; a third was to guard the prairies between the Wabash and the Illinois; and the chief of the Sioux was to attack St. Genevieve and Kaskaskia.[62]
The expedition against St. Louis and the Illinois towns, as well as in its larger aspect, was not successful. It was impossible to keep it secret and as early as March, an attack was expected. Spanish and Americans joined in repulsing the intruders. Another potent element in the failure was the treachery of some of the traders who acted as leaders for the British, notably that of Ducharme and Calvé, who had a lucrative trade and regarded the prospect of increasing it by the proposed attack as doubtful. In the last week of May, 1780, the attack on St. Louis was made. Several persons were killed, but the place was not taken. Cahokia was beleaguered for three days, but it was so well defended by George Rogers Clark that on the third night the enemy withdrew, when Clark hastened to intercept the expedition against Kentucky, while the Illinois and Spanish troops pursued the retreating enemy and burned the towns of the Sauk and Fox Indians. The British were much chagrined at the result of the expedition, yet they resolved to continue their plan of using Indians and sending out several parties at once.[63]
An expedition which gains much interest from the character of its leader was that of Col. Augustin Mottin de la Balme. This man had been commissioned quartermaster of gendarmerie, by the authorities of Versailles, in 1766; [pg 034] had come to America and been recommended by Silas Deane and Benjamin Franklin to the president of Congress, John Hancock, as a man who would be of service in training cavalry; had been breveted lieutenant-colonel of cavalry, in May, 1777; made inspector of cavalry, with the rank of colonel, in July following; and had resigned in October of the same year. The next year, a public notice, in French with English and German translations, announced that carpenters, bakers, and some other classes of laborers could find shelter and employment at a workshop established by La Balme, twenty-eight miles from Philadelphia.[64] In the summer of 1780, La Balme went from Fort Pitt to the Illinois country.
A contemporary who writes from Vincennes speaks of La Balme as a French colonel. He was regarded by the Americans with much suspicion. Capt. Dalton, the American commander at Vincennes, whose character was later much questioned, allowed him to go among the Indians,[65] whereupon La Balme advised them to send word to the tribes which Clark was preparing to attack and to warn them of their danger. La Balme also ingratiated himself with the discontented French, asking why they did not drive “these vagabonds,” the American soldiers, away, and saying that to refuse to furnish provisions was the most efficient method. “Everything he advances tends to advance the French interest and depreciate the American. The people here are easily misled; buoy'd up with the flattering hopes of being again subject to the king of France, he could easily prevail on them to drive every American out of the Place and this appears to me to be [pg 035] his Plan.” After thoroughly stirring up the people at Vincennes, the adventurer left, with an escort of thirty French and Indians, to visit Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and St. Louis. He and Col. Montgomery, then the superior officer in Illinois, did not meet, and he received not the slightest countenance from the Spanish commandant at St. Louis. By the French inhabitants, La Balme “was received ... just as the Jews would receive the Messiah—was conducted from the post here [at Kaskaskia] by a large detachment of the inhabitants as well as different tribes of Indians.” The French in the towns near the Mississippi were so enthusiastic that La Balme had little difficulty in raising forty or fifty troops for an expedition against Detroit. Some of the American soldiers at Cahokia deserted to him, and when placed under arrest by the military authorities were rescued by a mob. On October 5, 1780, after telling the Indians to be quiet because they would see the French in Illinois in the spring, the French troops set out from Cahokia.[66]
The troops from Illinois were to be joined by a body from Vincennes, but without waiting for them La Balme pushed on to the Miami towns, where he hoped to capture a British Indian trader who was especially hated by the French. The trader was not found, but his store of goods to the amount of one hundred horse-loads was seized. The expected reinforcements not arriving, La Balme felt too weak to attack Detroit and started to return. He was attacked by the Indians on the river Aboite, eleven miles southwest of the present Fort Wayne, and he and some [pg 036] thirty of his men were killed and at least one hundred horses, richly laden with plunder, were taken by the Indians. It was reported that disaffected inhabitants of Detroit had concealed five hundred stands of arms with which to assist the forces of La Balme in taking the place. Among La Balme's papers, which fell into the hands of the British and are now in the Canadian archives, were addresses, in French, by M. Mottin de la Balme, French colonel, etc., to the French settled on the Mississippi, dated St. Louis, September 17, 1780; a declaration, in French, in the name of the inhabitants of the village of Cahokia, addressed to La Balme: “We unanimously request you to listen with a favorable ear to the declaration which we venture to present to you, touching all the bad treatment we have suffered patiently since the Virginian troops unfortunately arrived amongst us till now,” dated Cahokia, September 21, 1780; a note from F. Trottier, a member of the court of Cahokia, elected under the Virginia government, to La Balme, saying that no meeting can be held until Sunday next, when he hopes the young men will show themselves worthy the high idea La Balme has of them, but that at present there are only twelve entirely determined to follow him wherever he goes, although others may follow their example, and asking La Balme to receive depositions against the Virginians, dated Cahokia, September 27, 1780; a petition, in French, addressed to the Chevalier de la Luzerne, minister plenipotentiary from France to the United States, by inhabitants of Post Vincennes, dated Vincennes, August 22, 1780; and a commission to Augustin Mottin de la Balme as quartermaster of gendarmèrie, dated Versailles, February 23, 1766.[67] The British promptly set about promoting the [pg 037] Indian trader whom La Balme and the French had sought to kill, believing that he would be serviceable as a spy.[68]
In the autumn of 1780, a party of seventeen men from Cahokia went on an expedition against St. Josephs. The party was commanded by “a half Indian,” and seems to have included but one American. The attack was so timed as to come when the Indians in the vicinity of St. Josephs were out hunting. The place was taken without difficulty, the traders of the place were captured and plundered, and the party, laden with booty, set out on the route to Chicago. A pursuing party was quickly organized and at the Rivière du Chemin, a small stream in Indiana, emptying into the southeastern part of Lake Michigan, the returning victors were summoned to surrender, on December 5, 1780. Upon their refusal, four were killed, two wounded, seven made prisoners, while three escaped.[69] [pg 038] The one American, Brady, was among the prisoners. He told the British that the party was sent by the creoles to plunder St. Josephs, and that there was not a Virginian in all the Illinois country, including Vincennes.[70]
In the very midst of winter, on January 2, 1781, an expedition commanded by Eugenio Pierre, a Spanish captain of militia, set out from St. Louis against St. Josephs. According to a Spanish account, the party consisted of sixty-five militia men and sixty Indians, while an American account declares it to have contained thirty Spaniards, twenty men from Cahokia, and two hundred Indians.