Harmar made a circuit and came down along the Scioto, hoping to surprise the Indian camp; but he might as well have hoped to surprise a party of timber wolves.  His foes scattered and disappeared in the dense forest.  Nevertheless, coming across some moccasin tracks, Scott’s horsemen followed the trail, killed four Indians, and carried in the scalps to Limestone.  The chastisement proved of little avail.  A month later five immigrant boats, while moored to the bank a few miles from Limestone, were rushed by the Indians at night; one boat was taken, all the thirteen souls aboard being killed or captured.

    Misadventures of Vigo.

Among the men who suffered about this time was the Italian Vigo; a fine, manly, generous fellow, of whom St. Clair spoke as having put the United States under heavy obligations, and as being “in truth the most disinterested person” he had ever known. [Footnote:  American State Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. i., Sept. 19, 1790.] While taking his trading boat up the Wabash, Vigo was attacked by an Indian war party, three of his men were killed, and he was forced to drop down-stream.  Meeting another trading boat manned by Americans, he again essayed to force a passage in company with it, but they were both attacked with fury.  The other boat got off; but Vigo’s was captured.  However, the Indians, when they found the crew consisted of Creoles, molested none of them, telling them that they only warred against the Americans; though they plundered the boat.

    Preparations to Attack the Indians.

By the summer of 1790 the raids of the Indians had become unbearable.  Fresh robberies and murders were committed every day in Kentucky, or along the Wabash and Ohio.  Writing to the Secretary of War, a prominent Kentuckian, well knowing all the facts, estimated that during the seven years which had elapsed since the close of the Revolutionary War the Indians had slain fifteen hundred people in Kentucky itself, or on the immigrant routes leading thither, and had stolen twenty thousand horses, besides destroying immense quantities of other property. [Footnote:  American State Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. i.  Innes to Sec. of War, July 7, 1790.] The Federal generals were also urgent in asserting the folly of carrying on a merely defensive war against such foes.  All the efforts of the Federal authorities to make treaties with the Indians and persuade them to be peaceful had failed.  The Indians themselves had renewed hostilities, and the different tribes had one by one joined in the war, behaving with a treachery only equalled by their ferocity.  With great reluctance the National Government concluded that an effort to chastise the hostile savages could no longer be delayed; and those on the Maumee, or Miami of the Lakes, and on the Wabash, whose guilt had been peculiarly heinous, were singled out as the objects of attack.

The expedition against the Wabash towns was led by the Federal commander at Vincennes, Major Hamtranck.  No resistance was encountered; and after burning a few villages of bark huts and destroying some corn he returned to Vincennes.