No overt act of hostility was committed by Clark's people, except by some of those who started to join him from the Cumberland district, under the lead of a man named Montgomery.

These men built a wooden fort at the mouth of the Cumberland River, and held the boats that passed to trade with Spain; one of the boats that they took being a scow loaded with flour and biscuit sent up stream by the Spanish Government itself.
Good Conduct of the United States Government.
When Wayne heard of the founding of this fort he acted with his usual promptness, and sent an expedition which broke it up and released the various boats.

Then, to stop any repetition of the offence, and more effectually to curb the overbearing truculence of the frontiersmen, he himself built, as already mentioned, a fort at Massac, not far from the Mississippi.

All this of course was done in the interests of the Spaniards themselves and in accordance with the earnest desire of the United States authorities to prevent any unlawful attack on Louisiana; yet Carondelet actually sent word to Gayoso de Lemos, the Governor of Natchez and the upper part of the river, to persuade the Chickasaws secretly to attack this fort and destroy it.
Ingratitude of the Spaniards.
Carondelet always had an exaggerated idea of the warlike capacity of the Indian nations, and never understood the power of the Americans, nor appreciated the desire of their Government to act in good faith.

Gayoso was in this respect a much more intelligent man, and he positively refused to carry out the orders of his superior, remonstrating directly to the Court of Spain, by which he was sustained.