"April 14. This settlement has been thrown into a panic by intelligence which has just been received from the upper country, concerning the hostile intentions of the Cayuse, Nez Percé, and Wallawalla Indians. It appears that they have again threatened the destruction of the whites. Some time in October last, Indian report said that these tribes were coming down to kill off the 'Boston' people, meaning those from the United States. This intelligence produced considerable excitement at the time, and induced the sub-agent of Indian affairs to go directly to the upper country and ascertain the truth of the report, and, if possible, settle all matters of difficulty. On arriving among the Indians, he ascertained that the report was not without foundation, but entered into such arrangements with them as appeared to give satisfaction. Thomas McKay contributed much to allay the excitement among them, and, in connection with the sub-agent, induced the Nez Percés to adopt a code of laws, and appoint a head chief and inferior chiefs, sufficient to carry the laws into execution. "It had been the policy of the Hudson's Bay Company to destroy the chieftainship, cut the different tribes into smaller clans, and divide their interests as far as possible, so as to weaken them, and render them incapable of injuring the whites, by preventing them from acting in concert. BUT THE SUB-AGENT ADOPTED A DIFFERENT POLICY. _The individual appointed to the high chieftainship over the Nez Percés was one Ellis, as he was called by the English, who, having spent several years in the settlement on Red River, east of the mountains, had, with a smattering of the English language, acquired a high sense of his own importance; and, consequently, after he was appointed chief, pursued a very haughty and overbearing course._ The fulfillment of the laws which the agent recommended for their adoption was required by Ellis with the utmost rigor. Individuals were severely punished for crimes which, from time immemorial, had been committed by the people with impunity. This occasioned suspicions in the minds of the Indians generally that the whites designed the ultimate subjugation of their tribes. They saw in the laws they had adopted, a deep-laid scheme of the whites to destroy them, and take possession of their country. The arrival of a large party of emigrants about this time, and the sudden departure of Dr. Whitman to the United States, with the avowed intention of bringing back with him as many as he could enlist for Oregon, served to hasten them to the above conclusion. That a great excitement existed among the Indians in the interior, and that they designed to make war upon the settlement, was only known to the whites through the medium of vague report, until a letter was received from H. K. W.