Immediately after taking the fort Clark sent Helm and fifty men, in boats armed with swivels, up the Wabash to intercept a party of forty French volunteers from Detroit, who were bringing to Vincennes bateaux heavily laden with goods of all kinds, to the value of ten thousand pounds sterling. [Footnote:  Letter to Henry.] In a few days Helm returned successful, and the spoils, together with the goods taken at Vincennes, were distributed among the soldiers, who “got almost rich.” [Footnote:  “Memoir.”] The officers kept nothing save a few needed articles of clothing.  The gun-boat Willing appeared shortly after the taking of the fort, the crew bitterly disappointed that they were not in time for the fighting.  The long-looked-for messenger from the governor of Virginia also arrived, bearing to the soldiers the warm thanks of the Legislature of that State for their capture of Kaskaskia and the promise of more substantial reward. [Footnote:  One hundred and fifty thousand acres of land opposite Louisville were finally allotted them.  Some of the Piankeshaw Indians ceded Clark a tract of land for his own use, but the Virginia Legislature very properly disallowed the grant.]

    Disposal of the Prisoners.

Clark was forced to parole most of his prisoners, but twenty-seven, including Hamilton himself, were sent to Virginia.  The backwoodsmen regarded Hamilton with revengeful hatred, and he was not well treated while among them, [Footnote:  In Hamilton’s “brief account” he says that their lives were often threatened by the borderers, but that “our guard behaved very well, protected us, and hunted for us.”  At the Falls he found “a number of settlers who lived in log-houses, in eternal apprehension from the Indians,” and he adds:  “The people at the forts are in a wretched state, obliged to enclose the cattle every night within the fort, and carry their rifles to the field when they go to plough or cut wood.”  He speaks of Boon’s kindness in his short printed narrative in the Royal Gazette.] save only by Boon—­for the kind-hearted, fearless old pioneer never felt any thing but pity for a fallen enemy.  All the borderers, including Clark, [Footnote:  Clark, in his letter to Mason, alludes to Hamilton’s “known barbarity”; but in his memoir he speaks very well of Hamilton, and attributes the murderous forays to his subordinates, one of whom, Major Hay, he particularly specifies.] believed that the British commander himself gave rewards to the Indians for the American scalps they brought in; and because of his alleged behavior in this regard he was kept in close confinement by the Virginia government until, through the intercession of Washington, he was at last released and exchanged.  Exactly how much he was to blame it is difficult to say.  Certainly the blame rests even more with the crown, and the ruling class in Britain, than with Hamilton, who merely carried out the orders of his superiors; and though he undoubtedly heartily approved of these orders, and executed them with eager zest, yet it seems that he did what he could—­which was very little—­to prevent unnecessary atrocities.