assured them of the protection of their sovereign,
gave them arms in great quantities for the avowed purpose of committing
hostilities on us, and promised them future supplies to their utmost
need. The Chickasaws, the most steady and faithful friends of these
States, have remained unshaken by these practices. So also have the
Chocktaws, for the most part. The Cherokees have been teazed into some
expressions of discontent, delivered only to the Spanish Governors, or
their agents; while to us, they have continued to speak the language of
peace and friendship. One part of the nation only, settled at Cuckamogga
and mixed with banditti and outcasts from the Shawanese and other
tribes, acknowledging control from none, and never in a state of peace,
have readily engaged in the hostilities against us to which they were
encouraged. But what was much more important, great numbers of the
Creeks, chiefly their young men, have yielded to these incitements,
and have now, for more than a twelvemonth, been committing murders and
desolations on our frontiers. Really desirous of living in peace with
them, we have redoubled our efforts to produce the same disposition in
them. We have borne with their aggressions, forbidden all returns of
hostility against them, tied up the hands of our people, insomuch that
few instances of retaliation have occurred even from our suffering
citizens; we have multiplied our gratifications to them, fed them when
starving from the produce of our own fields and labor. No longer ago
than the last winter, when they had no other resource against famine and
must have perished in great numbers, we carried into their country and
distributed among them, gratuitously, ten thousand bushels of corn; and
that too, at the same time, when their young men were daily committing
murders on helpless women and children, on our frontiers. And though
these depredations now involve more considerable parts of the nation, we
are still demanding punishment of the guilty individuals, and shall be
contented with it. These acts of neighborly kindness and support on our
part, have not been confined to the Creeks, though extended to them in
much the greatest degree. Like wants among the Chickasaws had induced
us to send them also, at first, five hundred bushels of corn, and
afterwards, fifteen hundred more. Our language to all the tribes of
Indians has constantly been, to live in peace with one another, and in
a most especial manner, we hav