Harmar found life in the settlements he visited as crude as the path he traveled. Kaskaskia was a French village of one hundred and ninety-one men, old and young, with an accompaniment of women and children of various mixtures of white and red blood. Cahokia, then the metropolis, had two hundred and thirty-nine Frenchmen, old and young, with an accompaniment similarly mixed. Between these settlements was Bellefontaine, a small stockade, inhabited altogether by Americans, who had settled without authority. The situation was a beautiful one; the land was fertile; there was no taxation, and the people had an abundance to live upon. They were much alarmed when told of their precarious state respecting a title to their lands, and they gave Tardiveau a petition to carry to Congress. On the route to Cahokia, another stockade, Grand Ruisseau, similarly inhabited by Americans, was passed. There were about thirty other American intruders in the fertile valleys near the Mississippi, and they, too, gave Tardiveau a petition to Congress.
The Kaskaskia, Peoria, Cahokia, and Mitcha tribes of Indians numbered only about forty or fifty members, of whom but ten or eleven individuals composed the Kaskaskia tribe; but this does not mean that danger from the Indians was not great, because other and more hostile tribes came in great numbers to hunt in the Illinois country. The significance of the diminished numbers of these particular tribes lies in the fact that they had the strongest claim to that part of Illinois which would be first needed for settlement. At Kaskaskia and Cahokia, the French were advised to obey their magistrates until Congress had a government ready for them, and Cahokia was advised to put its militia into better shape, and to put any turbulent or refractory persons under guard until a government could be instituted.(102)
Having finished his work in the settlements near the Mississippi, Harmar returned to Vincennes, where he held councils with the Indians, and on October 1, set out on his return to Fort Harmar. Although without authority to give permanent redress, he had persuaded the French at Vincennes to relinquish their charter and to throw themselves upon the generosity of Congress. "As it would have been impolitic, after the parade we had made, to entirely abandon the country," he left Maj. John F. Hamtramck, with ninety-five men, at Vincennes.(103) Harmar's visit was doubtless of some value, but he had not been gone five weeks when Hamtramck wrote to him: "Our civil administration has been, and is, in a great confusion. Many people are displeased with the Magistrates; how it will go at the election, which is to be the 2d of Decr, I know not. But it is to be hoped that Congress will soon establish some mode of government, for I never saw so injudicious administration. Application has repeatedly been made to me for redress. I have avoided to give answer, not knowing how far my powers extended. In my opinion, the Minister of War should have that matter determined, and sincerely beg you would push it. I confess to you, that I have been very much at a loss how to act on many occasions."(104)