519.
Letter of Joseph St.Mary, Vincennes, August 23, 1788.] Retaliation of the Frontiersmen.
Outrages of this kind, continually happening alike to Americans and to Creoles under American protection, could not have been tamely borne by any self-respecting people.

The fierce and hardy frontiersmen were goaded to anger by them, and were ready to take part in, or at least to connive at, any piece of lawless retaliation.

Such an act of revenge was committed by Clark at Vincennes, as one result of his ill-starred expedition against the Wabash Indians in 1786.

As already said, when his men mutinied and refused to march against the Indians, most of them returned home; but he kept enough to garrison the Vincennes fort.
Unpaid, and under no regular authority, these men plundered the French inhabitants and were a terror to the peaceable, as well as to the lawless, Indians.

Doubtless Clark desired to hold them in readiness as much for a raid on the Spanish possessions as for a defence against the Indians.