The priest at Vincennes, for instance, bitterly assailed the priest at Cahokia, because he married a Catholic to a Protestant; while all the people of the Cahokia church stoutly supported their pastor in what he had done.
[Footnote: _Do_., p.

85.] This Catholic priest was Clark's old friend Gibault.

He was suffering from poverty, due to his loyal friendship to the Americans; for he had advanced Clark's troops both goods and peltries, for which he had never received payment.

In a petition to Congress he showed how this failure to repay him had reduced him to want, and had forced him to sell his two slaves, who otherwise would have kept and tended him in his old age.

[Footnote: American State Papers, Public Lands, I., Gibault's Memorial, May I, 1790.] The Federal General Harmar, in the fall of 1787, took formal possession, in person, of Vincennes and the Illinois towns; and he commented upon the good behavior of the Creoles, and their respect for the United States Government, and laid stress upon the fact that they were entirely unacquainted with what the Americans called liberty, and could best be governed in the manner to which they were accustomed--"by a commandant with a few troops." [Footnote: St.Clair Papers, Harmar's Letters, August 7th and November 24th, 1787.] Contrast between the French and Americans.
The American pioneers, on the contrary, were of all people the least suited to be governed by a commandant with troops.