ure of the Detroit expedition; Hamilton languishing in a Virginia dungeon, twelve hundred miles from his capital—Fort Detroit; Fort Laurens abandoned, and the Kentucky country covered with gloom over Rogers's terrible loss and Bowman's inglorious retreat from the valley of the Scioto. On the other hand, the East was glorying in Mad Anthony Wayne's capture of Stony Point, Sullivan's rebuke to the Indians, and Paul Jones's electrifying victory on the sea.
In 1780 four expeditions set forth, all of them singular in character, and noteworthy. The year before, 1779, Spain had declared war upon England. The new commander at Detroit took immediate occasion to regain control of the Mississippi by attacking the Spanish town of St. Louis. This expedition, under Captain Sinclair, descended the Mississippi from Prairie du Chien. The attack was not successful, but six whites were killed and eighteen taken prisoner.
At the time of Bowman's expedition against the Shawanese, in the preceding year a British officer, Colonel Bird, had
