they should not permit the treaty to be
protracted, by which day, orders should be given for our forces to enter
into action. The President took up the thing instantly, after I had said
this, and declared he was so much in the opinion that the treaty would
end in nothing, that he then, in the presence of us all, gave orders to
General Knox, not to slacken the preparations for the campaign in the
least, but to exert every nerve in preparing for it. Knox said something
about the ultimate day for continuing the negotiations. I acknowledged
myself not a judge on what day the campaign should begin, but that
whatever it was, that day should terminate the treaty. Knox said he
thought a winter campaign was always the most efficacious against the
Indians. I was of opinion, since Great Britain insisted on furnishing
provisions, that we should offer to repay. Hamilton thought we should
not.

Second question. I considered our right of preemption of the
Indian lands, not as amounting to any dominion, or jurisdiction, or
paramountship whatever, but merely in the nature of a remainder after
the extinguishment of a present right, which gave us no present right
whatever, but of preventing other nations from taking possession, and so
defeating our expectancy; that the Indians had the full, undivided, and
independent sovereignty as long as they chose to keep it, and that this
might be for ever; that as fast as we extend our rights by purchase from
them, so fast we extend the limits of our society, and as soon as a new
portion became encircled within our line, it became a fixed limit of
our society: that the executive, with either or both branches of the
legislature, could not alien any part of our territory; that by the
law of nations it was settled, that the unity and indivisibility of
the society was so fundamental, that it could not be dismembered by the
constituted authorities, except, 1. where all power was delegated to
them (as in the case of despotic governments,) or, 2. where it was
expressly delegated; that neither of these delegations had been made
to our General Government, and, therefore, that it had no right
to dismember or alienate any portion of territory once ultimately
consolidated with us; and that we could no more cede to the Indians
than to the English or Spaniards, as it might, according to acknowledged
principles, remain as irrevocably and eternally with the one as the
other. But I thought, that, as we had a right to