"Clark understood," says this excellent compilation, "the whole game of the British. He saw that it was through their possession of Detroit, Vincennes, Kaskaskia and the other western posts--which gave them easy and constant access to the Indian tribes of the north-east--that the British hoped to effect such a union of the wild men as would annihilate the frontier fortresses. He knew that the Delawares were divided in feeling, and the Shawnees but imperfectly united in favor of England, ever since the murder of Comstalk. He was convinced that could the British in the north-west be defeated and expelled, the natives might be easily awed or bribed into neutrality; and by spies sent for the purpose, and who were absent from April 20th to June 22d, he had satisfied himself that an enterprise against the Illinois settlements might easily succeed. Having made up his mind, on the 1st of October he left Harrodsburg for the East, and reached the capital of Virginia November the 5th. Opening his mind to no one he watched with care the state of feeling among those in power, waiting the proper moment to present his scheme. Fortunately, while he was upon his road, on the 17th of October, Burgoyne had surrendered, and hope was again predominant in the American councils. When, therefore, the western soldier, upon the 10th of December, broke the subject of his proposed expedition against the forts on the far distant Mississippi to Patrick Henry, who was still governor, he met with a favorable hearing, and though doubts and fears arose by degrees, yet so well digested were his plans, that he was able to meet each objection and remove every seeming impossibility."
Having thus satisfied the Virginia leaders of the feasibility of his plan, he received on the 22d of January two sets of instructions--the one open, authorizing him to enlist seven companies to go to Kentucky, subject to his orders, and to serve for three months from their arrival in the West; the other set secret, and drawn as follows:
"_Virginia: Sct. In Council, Williamsburg, Jan. 22d, 1778._
"You are to proceed, with all convenient speed, to raise seven companies of soldiers, to consist of fifty men each, officered in the usual manner, and armed most properly for the enterprise; and with this force attack the British post at Kaskaskia.