Note 1537 — Chapter IX

See Dillon, p. 179; Perkins's Annals, p. 278. In Jefferson's Writings, iii. 217, 218, and Cal. Va. State Papers, iv. 189, 202, will be found some sad incidents which throw light on the habits and subsequent record of Col. Clark. In 1793 he imprudently accepted from Genet, the French minister, a position in the service of France, with the rank of major-general and commander-in-chief of the French revolutionary legions on the Mississippi River. The purpose of this revolutionary scheme, which had many supporters in Kentucky and the West, was "to open the trade of the said river and give freedom to the inhabitants", by capturing and holding the Spanish settlements on the Mississippi. The troops were to receive pay as French soldiers, and donations of land in the conquered districts. Before the scheme could be put into execution, a counter-revolution occurred in France, Genet was recalled, and Clark's commission was cancelled. See Collins's Kentucky, i. 277; ii. 140; McMaster, Hist. of U. S., ii. 142; Washington's Message against Genet and his scheme is in Writings, xii. 96. For Clark's reputation and the achievements up to 1781, see Marshall's Washington, iii. 562; Rives's Madison, i. 193; Withers's Border Warfare, p. 190; Harper's Mag. (by R. F. Colman), xxii. 784; xxxiii. 52; xxviii. 302; Potter's Am. Monthly (by W. W. Henry), v. 908; vi. 308; vii. 140; Ibid. (by S. Evans), vi. 191, 451; Western Jour. (St. Louis, 1850), iii. 168, 216; John Reynolds in Hist. Mag., June, 1857; Collins's Kentucky. He was styled by John Randolph "the Hannibal of the West", and by Gov. John Reynolds "the Washington of the West." He was never married. He died February 13, 1818, and was buried at Locust Grove, near Louisville, Ky.