and purchase with the money clothes and other comforts for themselves. Our settlements around Detroit will give you the same advantages. If you become farmers and raise cattle, hogs, sheep, fowls, and such things to spare, you can immediately exchange them for clothing and other necessaries. I am satisfied, therefore, my children, that the accommodating us with that land was as beneficial to you as to us. But, notwithstanding, I believe it to be better for you to sell your surplus lands from time to time; yet I repeat to you the assurances that although we may go so far, sometimes, as to say we would be willing to buy such a piece of land, yet we will never press you to sell, until you shall desire yourselves to sell it.

I have thus, my children, answered the particulars of your speech. I have done it with truth and an open heart, and I hope it will be satisfactory to you.

XXVIII.

January 31, 1809.

To the Chiefs of the Ottawas, Chippewas, Powtewatamies, Wyandots, and Shawanese:

My Children, I have considered the speech you have delivered me, and I will now give you an answer to it. You have told us on former occasions of certain promises made to you at the treaty of Grenville, by General Wayne, respecting certain lands whereon you and your friends live. But when we looked into the treaty of Grenville, we found no such promises there; and as it is our custom to put all our agreements into writing, that they may never be forgotten or mistaken, we concluded no such promises had been made. But you now explain that the chiefs of the Wyandots near Detroit did not arrive at Grenville till after the treaty was signed-that they then convinced General Wayne that provision ought to be made for securing to them possession of the lands they lived on, so long as they and their descendants shall choose to live on them, and that he agreed to it. Of this, besides other evidence, you now pro

duce the belt of wampum reserved by you, in memory of it, the counter-belt given us having probably been destroyed in the fire which consumed our war office in the year 1800. Such evidence, therefore, being now produced as induces a belief of the agreement, it shall be committed to writing, according to what has passed between the Secretary at War and yourselves; and we will also put into writing what has passed respecting the reserves for the Indians, and you shall have a copy of these writings which shall be firm and good to you forever.

You complain that white people go on your lands and settle without your consent. This is entirely against our will, and I earnestly desire you, my children, as soon as any intruder of the whites sets down on your lands, that you will not delay a moment to inform our agent, who will always be instructed in the measures to be taken for their immediate removal; and I desire you to do this, on your return, as to the intruders you now complain of.

The Secretary at War has explained to you the circumstances which attended the running the boundary line near Sandusky, under the treaty at Swan's creek, so as to satisfy you that no variation of it was intended; and you may be assured that when we proceed to run the lines for the roads granted us the last fall, you shall have notice, in order that your chiefs may attend and see it fairly done.

For these roads, with which your nations have been so friendly as to accommodate us, and which you wished us to accept as a present, I return you my thanks, and I accept them; and I request you, on our part, to accept as a token of our good will, the sum of a thousand dollars, of which five hundred dollars will be paid you here. And we shall be happy if you can employ this sum to your benefit or comfort in any way. Our settlements are now extending so much in every direction, that we shall be obliged to ask roads from our Indian brethren, that we may pass conveniently from one settlement to another, for which we will always gladly pay them the full value.

You have been informed, as you desired, of the exact amount of your annuities.

I have thus, my children, answered all the parts of your speech, and I have done it sincerely and with good will to you. I have not filled you with whiskey, as the English do, to make you promise, or give up what is against your interest, when out of your senses. I have listened to your complaints and proposals, I have found them reasonable, and I have given you the answers which a just and a reasonable nation ought to do. And this you may be assured is the way in which we shall always do business with you, because we do not consider you as another nation, but as a part of us, living indeed under your own laws, but having the same interests with us. I hope you will tell these things to your people, and that they will sink deep into their minds.

APPENDIX TO PART II, OF BOOK III.

CONFIDENTIAL MESSAGE RECOMMENDING A WESTERN EXPLORING EXPEDITION-JANUARY 18, 1803.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :— As the continuance of the act for establishing trading-houses with the Indian tribes, will be under the consideration of the legislature at its present session, I think it my duty to communicate the views which have guided me in the execution of that act, in order that you may decide on the policy of continuing it, in the present or any other form, or discontinue it altogether, if that shall, on the whole, seem most for the public good.

The Indian tribes residing within the limits of the United States, have, for a considerable time, been growing more and more uneasy at the constant diminution of the territory they occupy, although effected by their own voluntary sales; and the policy has long been gaining strength with them, of refusing absolutely all further sale, on any conditions; insomuch that, at this time, it hazards their friendship, and excites dangerous jealousies and perturbations in their minds to make any overture for the purchase of the smallest portions of their land. A very few tribes only are not yet obstinately in these dispositions. In order peaceably to counteract this policy of theirs, and to provide an extension of territory which the rapid increase of our numbers will call for, two measures are deemed expedient. First: to encourage them to abandon hunting, to apply to the raising stock, to agriculture and domestic manufactures, and thereby prove to themselves that less land and labor will maintain them in this, better than in their former mode of living. The extensive forests necessary in the hunting life will then become use

less, and they will see advantage in exchanging them for the means of improving their farms and of increasing their domestic comforts. Secondly: to multiply trading-houses among them, and place within their reach those things which will contribute more to their domestic comfort than the possession of extensive but uncultivated wilds. Experience and reflection will develop to them the wisdom of exchanging what they can spare and we want, for what we can spare and they want. In leading them thus to agriculture, to manufactures, and civilization; in bringing together their and our settlements, and in preparing them ultimately to participate in the benefits of our government, I trust and believe we are acting for their greatest good. At these trading-houses we have pursued the principles of the act of Congress, which directs that the commerce shall be carried on liberally, and requires only that the capital stock shall not be diminished. We consequently undersell private traders, foreign and domestic; drive them from the competition; and thus, with the good will of the Indians, rid ourselves of a description of men who are constantly endeavoring to excite in the Indian mind suspicions, fears, and irritations toward us. A letter now enclosed, shows the effect of our competition on the operations of the traders, while the Indians, perceiving the advantage of purchasing from us, are soliciting generally our establishment of trading houses among them. In one quarter this is particularly interesting. The legislature, reflecting on the late occurrences on the Mississippi, must be sensible how desirable it is to possess a respectable breadth of country on that river, from our southern limit to the Illinois at least, so that we may present as firm a front on that as on our eastern border. We possess what is below the Yazoo, and can probably acquire a certain breadth from the Illinois and Wabash to the Ohio; but between the Ohio and Yazoo, the country all belongs to the Chickasaws, the most friendly tribe within our limits, but the most decided against the alienation of lands. The portion of their country most important for us is exactly that which they do not inhabit. Their settlements are not on the Mississippi, but in the interior country. They have lately shown a desire to become agricultural, and this