to Williamsburg, where he soon broke parole and escaped. His
slaves were sold for five hundred pounds, and the money was
distributed among the troops. Cahokia was occupied without
resistance, and the French priest, Father Pierre Gibault, whose
parish extended from Lake Superior to the Ohio, volunteered to go
to Vincennes and win its inhabitants to the American cause.

Like Kaskaskia and Cahokia, the Wabash settlement had been put in
charge of a commandant of French descent. The village, however,
was at the moment without a garrison, and its chief stronghold,
Fort Sackville, was untenanted. Gibault argued forcefully for
acceptance of American sovereignty, and within two days the
entire population filed into the little church and took the oath
of allegiance. The astonished Indians were given to understand
that their former "Great Father," the King of France, had
returned to life, and that they must comply promptly with his
wishes or incur his everlasting wrath for having given aid to the
despised British.

Thus without the firing of a shot or the shedding of a drop of
blood, the vast Illinois and Wabash country was won for the
future United States. Clark's plan was such that its success was
assured by its very audacity. It never occurred to the British
authorities that their far western forts were in danger, and they
were wholly unprepared to fly to the defense of such distant
posts. British sovereignty on the Mississippi was never
recovered; and in the autumn of 1778 Virginia took steps to
organize her new conquest by setting up the county of Illinois,
which included all her territories lying "on the western side of
the Ohio."