and he feared the inrush of a horde of speculators, who would buy land with no immediate intention of settling thereon.  Besides, the land was so fertile in the river bottoms, that he deemed the amount Virginia allotted to each person excessive.  So he decreed that each settler should take up his land in the shape of one of the long narrow French farms, that stretched back from the water-front; and that no claim should contain a greater number of acres than did one of these same farms.  This proclamation undoubtedly had a very good effect.

    Financial Difficulties.

He next wrestled steadily, but much less successfully, with the financial question.  He attempted to establish a land bank, as it were, setting aside a great tract of land to secure certain issues of Continental money.  The scheme failed, and in spite of his public assurance that the Continental currency would shortly be equal in value to gold and silver, it swiftly sank until it was not worth two cents on the dollar.

This wretched and worthless paper-money, which the Americans brought with them, was a perfect curse to the country.  Its rapid depreciation made it almost impossible to pay the troops, or to secure them supplies, and as a consequence they became disorderly and mutinous.  Two or three prominent creoles, who were devoted adherents of the American cause, made loans of silver to the Virginian Government, as represented by Clark, thereby helping him materially in the prosecution of his campaign.  Chief among these public-spirited patriots were Francis Vigo, and the priest Gibault, both of them already honorably mentioned.  Vigo advanced nearly nine thousand dollars in specie,—­piastres or Spanish milled dollars,—­receiving in return bills on the “Agent of Virginia,” which came back protested for want of funds; and neither he nor his heirs ever got a dollar of what was due them.  He did even more.  The creoles at first refused to receive any thing but peltries or silver for their goods; they would have nothing to do with the paper, and to all explanations as to its uses, simply answered “that their commandants never made money.” [Footnote:  Law’s “Vincennes,” pp. 49, 126.  For some inscrutable reason, by the way, the Americans for a long time persisted in speaking of the place as St. Vincennes.] Finally they were persuaded to take it on Vigo’s personal guaranty, and his receiving it in his store.  Even he, however, could not buoy it up long.

Gibault likewise [Footnote See his letter to Governor St. Clair, May I, 1790.] advanced a large sum of money, parted with his titles and beasts, so as to set a good example to his parishioners, and, with the same purpose, furnished goods to the troops at ordinary prices, taking the paper in exchange as if it had been silver.  In consequence he lost over fifteen hundred dollars, was forced to sell his only two slaves, and became almost destitute; though in the end he received from the government a tract of land which