ith the Indians.

Blount was vigilant and active in seeing that none of the frontiersmen
trespassed on the Indian lands, and when a party of men, claiming
authority under Georgia, started to settle at the Muscle Shoals, he
co-operated actively with the Indians in having them brought back, and
did his best, though in vain, to persuade the Grand Jury to indict the
offenders. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Sept. 3,
1791.] He was explicit in his orders to Sevier, to Robertson, and to
District Attorney Jackson that they should promptly punish any white man
who violated the provisions of the treaty; and over a year after it had
been entered into he was able to write in explicit terms that "not a
single settler had built a house, or made a settlement of any kind, on
the Cherokee lands, and that no Indians had been killed by the whites
excepting in defence of their lives and property." [Footnote: _Do_.,
Blount to Robertson, Jan. 2, 1792; to Bloody Fellow, Sept. 13, 1792.]
Robertson heartily co-operated with Blount, as did Sevier, in the effort
to keep peace, Robertson showing much good sense and self-control, and
acquiescing in Blount's desire that nothing should be done "inconsistent
with the good of the nation as a whole," and that "the faith of the
nation should be kept." [Footnote: Blount MSS., Robertson to Blount,
Jan. 17, 1793.]

Bad Faith of the Indians.

The Indians as a body showed no appreciation whatever of these efforts
to keep the peace, and plundered and murdered quite as freely as before
the treaties, or as when the whites themselves were the aggressors. The
Creek Confederacy was in a condition of utter disorganization,
McGillivray's authority was repudiated, and most of the towns scornfully
refused to obey the treaty into which their representatives had entered
at New York. A tory adventurer named Bowles, who claimed to have the
backing of the English Government, landed in the nation and set himself
in opposition to McGillivray. The latter, who was no fighter, and whose
tools were treachery and craft, fled to the protection of the Spaniards.
Bowles, among other feats, plundered the stores of Panton, a white
trader in the Spanish interest, and for a moment his authority seemed
supreme; but the Spaniards, by a trick, got possession of him and put
him in prison.

Intrigues of the Spaniards.

The Spaniards still claimed as their own the Southwestern country, and
were untiring in their