HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS.
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Joseph River, a hundred years before. Brady and his party captured a few British prisoners, and a large quantity of goods. On their return, while encamped on the Calumet, they were attacked by a band of Pottawatomies, and all were killed, wounded or taken prisoners except Brady and two others, who escaped. Early in January, 1781, a party consisting of sixty-five whites, organized from St. Louis and Cahokia, with some 200 Indians, and headed by Don Eugenio Pourre, a Spaniard, started on a second expedition against Fort St. Joseph. By silencing the Indians, whom they met on their way, with promises of plunder, they were able to reach the fort without discovery, captured it and, raising the Spanish flag, formally took possession in the name of the King of Spain. After retaining possession for a few days, the party returned to St. Louis, but in negotiating the treaty of peace at Paris, in 1783, this incident was made the basis of a claim put forth by Spain to ownership of the "Illinois Country" "by right of conquest."
THE TERRITORIAL PERIOD.-At the very outset of its existence, the new Government of the United States was confronted with an embarrassing question which deeply affected the interests of the territory of which Illinois formed a part. This was the claim of certain States to lands lying between their western boundaries and the Mississippi River, then the western boundary of the Republic. These claims were based either upon the terms of their original charters or upon the cession of lands by the Indians, and it was under a claim of the former character, as well as by right of conquest, that Virginia assumed to exercise authority over the "Illinois Country" after its capture by the Clark expedition. This construction was opposed by the States which, from their geographical position or other cause, had no claim to lands beyond their own boundaries, and the controversy was waged with considerable bitterness for several years, proving a formidable obstacle to the ratification of the Articles of Confederation. As early as 1779 the subject received the attention of Congress in the adoption of a resolution requesting the States having such claims to "forbear settling or issuing warrants for unappropriated lands or granting the same during the cont
