In due time small detachments were sent to Vincennes
and other posts; and the triumph of the British power over
Frenchman and Indian was complete. Saint-Ange retired with his
little garrison to St. Louis, where, until the arrival of a
Spanish lieutenant-governor in 1770, he acted by common consent
as chief magistrate.
The creoles who passed under the English flag suffered little
from the change. Their property and trading interests were not
molested, and the English commandants made no effort to displace
the old laws and usages. Documents were written and records were
kept in French as well as English. The village priest and the
notary retained their accustomed places of paternal authority.
The old idyllic life went on. Population increased but little;
barter, hunting, and trapping still furnished the means of a
simple subsistence; and with music, dancing, and holiday
festivities the light-hearted populace managed to crowd more
pleasure into a year than the average English frontiersman got in
a lifetime.
For a year or two after the European pacification of 1763 Indian
disturbances held back the flood of settlers preparing to enter,
through the Alleghany passes, the upper valleys of the westward
flowing rivers.
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