The things we do!

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This territory was distinct from that of the British colonies up to the
very time of the American Revolution. And when the Revolution was over and
independence was won, by the aid of France let it be remembered, the only
settlements within the valley were three little clusters of French
gathered about the forts once French, then for a few years nominally
English, and then American: two thousand inhabitants at Detroit and four
thousand at Vincennes, on the Wabash, and in the hamlets along the
Mississippi above the Ohio.
How little the life of those settlements was disturbed is intimated by
what occurred in one of the Illinois villages--that about Fort Chartres.
The venerable and beloved commander, Louis St. Ange de Belle Rive, had
upon the first formal surrender ascended the Mississippi River and crossed
to the Spanish territory, where the foundations of the city of St. Louis
were being laid, but the British officer in command at Fort Chartres dying
suddenly, and there being no one competent to succeed him, St.


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