[1558] The expedition of Captain Byrd from Detroit.
[1559] Sinclair reported to Haldimand, July 8th, "Two hundred Illinois cavalry arrived at Chicago five days after the vessels left" (Mich. Pion. Coll., ix. 558).
[1560] Dr. Lyman C. Draper (Wisconsin Hist. Coll., ix. 291) says: "There was a party of Spanish allies sent out with Montgomery's expedition from Cahokia in the latter part of May, 1780, in the direction of Rock River." See also his note (Ibid. vii. 176). He thinks that the Spaniards and some of the Americans probably returned by way of Prairie du Chien, and that they were the party mentioned by Long in his Voyages, 1791.
[1561] Michigan Pioneer Col., ix. 541. Capt. Byrd, writing to De Peyster, May 21, 1780, reports that a Delaware Indian has come in from the Falls with this information: "Col. Clark says he will wait for us, instead of going to the Mississippi; his numbers do not exceed 200; his provisions and ammunition short" (Ibid. 584). Clark was on his way to St. Louis before this date, and was back to Kentucky in season to block Byrd's plans.
[1562] Perkins's Annals, p. 245.
[1563] It is noticeable that in these decisive campaigns efficient aid was furnished in the West by Spain, and in the East by France; and that both these powers, in the negotiations for a treaty of peace with Great Britain, threw their influence against the interests of the United States.
[1564] See Gayarré, Louisiana, Span. Dom., p. 134; Pitkin's United States, ii. 88, App. 512; Secret Jour. of Cong., ii. 326.
[1565] Sparks's Dipl. Corresp., viii. 156. The Spanish claims and the Western boundary question are very fully discussed in this eighth volume.
[1566] Mr. Jay (Sparks's Dipl. Corres., viii. 76-78) gives the main facts concerning the Spanish expedition to St. Joseph, which he translated from the Madrid Gazette of March 12, 1782. Mr. E. G. Mason (Mag. of Amer. Hist., xv. 457) has treated the subject more fully in a paper entitled "March of the Spaniards across Illinois in 1781." See also Reynolds's Illinois, ed. 1887, p. 126; Dillon's Indiana, ed. 1843, p. 190; Perkins's Annals, ed. 1851, p. 251.
Dr. Franklin, writing from Passy, April 12, 1782, to Secretary Livingston, said: "I see by the newspapers that the Spaniards, having taken a little post called St. Joseph, pretend to have made a conquest of the Illinois country. In what light does this proceeding appear to Congress? While they decline our offered friendship, are they to be suffered to encroach on our bounds, and shut us up within the Appalachian Mountains? I begin to fear they have some such project" (Works, Sparks, ix. 206).