new Governor of North Carolina adopted a much more pacific tone than
his predecessor, and he and Sevier exchanged some further letters, but
without result.

Treaty with the Cherokees.

One of the main reasons for discontent with the parent State was the
delay in striking an advantageous treaty with the Indians, and the
Franklin people hastened to make up for this delay by summoning the
Cherokees to council. [Footnote: Virginia State Papers, IV., 25, 37,
etc.] Many of the chiefs, who were already under solemn agreement with
the United States and North Carolina, refused to attend; but, as usual
with Indians, they could not control all their people, some of whom were
present at the time appointed. With the Indians who were thus present
the whites went through the form of a treaty under which they received
large cessions of Cherokee lands. The ordinary results of such a treaty
followed. The Indians who had not signed promptly repudiated as
unauthorized and ineffective the action of the few who had; and the
latter asserted that they had been tricked into signing, and were not
aware of the true nature of the document to which they had affixed their
marks. [Footnote: Talk of Old Tassel, September 19, 1785, Ramsey, 319.]
The whites heeded these protests not at all, but kept the land they had
settled.

In fact the attitude of the Franklin people towards the Cherokees was
one of mere piracy. In the August session of their legislature they
passed a law to encourage an expedition to go down the Tennessee on the
west side and take possession of the country in the great bend of that
river under titles derived from the State of Georgia. The eighty or
ninety men composing this expedition actually descended the river, and
made a settlement by the Muscle Shoals, in what the Georgians called the
county of Houston. They opened a land office, organized a county
government, and elected John Sevier's brother, Valentine, to represent
them in the Georgia Legislature; but that body refused to allow him a
seat. After a fortnight's existence the attitude of the Indians became
so menacing that the settlement broke up and was abandoned.

The Greenville Constitutional Convention.

In November, 1785, the convention to provide a permanent constitution
for the state met at Greenville. There was already much discontent with
the Franklin Government. The differences between its adherents and those
of the old North Carolina Government were acce