Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/253

1776-8] Clark's campaigns in the Ohio valley. 221 In the meantime a contest of the greatest importance to the future of the United States was being waged in the west. The conquest of Canada had transferred the Ohio valley from France to England. The two great motives which had stimulated the more far-sighted of the colonists to take up an aggressive attitude against France were the danger from Canada itself, as a base for Indian raids, and the dread that French occupation would form a belt round the colonies from the mouth of the Mississippi to the Canadian lakes, and thus bar the possibility of expansion westwards. If America and Great Britain were to be hostile or even separate powers, these dangers would revive. That the Ohio valley became American and not British territory was due mainly to the clear sight, the enterprise and the military ability of one man, George Rogers Clark. Fortunately too for America, there had come into existence a border population pre-eminently fitted for the task before them. From 1769 onward there had been a steady influx of settlers, mostly from Virginia and Pennsylvania, into the territory which is now Kentucky and Tennessee. The settlers were frequently, if not mainly, Presbyterians from the north of Ireland, gifted with the more than Scottish stubbornness, tenacity, and self-reliance of their race. The conditions of their life were such that the law of the survival of the fittest operated with full force. Constant danger from Indians begot watchfulness, resource, and merciless hatred for the savage: and this hatred was naturally extended to the British government, which in that quarter had been making full use of the savage alliance. During 1776 and 1777 continuous raids were made on their newly- formed settlement. Early in 1778 Clark conceived the project of a counter-attack, not a mere raid, but a conquest and political occupation of the Ohio valley. To effect this, he reckoned on the neutrality if not the good-will of the French inhabitants. Resolute though the border settlers were in the defence of their homesteads, yet they were primarily a population of farmers struggling hard for subsistence, and therefore unavailable for a long campaign far from their homes. A few of the more strenuous and adventurous joined Clark ; but he had to raise his main force in Kentucky, having obtained from the government of Virginia approval of his scheme, though very little in the way of practical support. With less than two hundred men Clark advanced stealthily on Kaskaskia, a settlement where the French inhabitants appeared so loyal to their new masters that the fort was entrusted to a French garrison. The surprise was completely successful: the place was seized before the garrison could take any action. Not only was Kaskaskia secured, but the whole of the neighbouring population trans- ferred their allegiance to the Americans, and proceeded to organise themselves under Clark to repel a British invasion. Clark's merits as a commander did not end with his sagacity in designing a scheme of conquest, or his promptitude in executing it. CH. VII.