The white settlers of Georgia were beginning to press through what the Creeks claimed as their frontier; and to that pressure was added the hostility engendered by the revolution, now in its second year, against any semblance of favor to the enemies of the patriotic cause. The West Florida-English and their government were on the most friendly terms with the Creeks; and that in itself was sufficient to beget hostility to the latter on the part of the Whigs of Georgia and the Carolinas. This was a new and complex condition of things to the Creeks, presenting questions for solution with which their great council felt its inability to deal. To whom could they look for guidance? They knew no disinterested advice could come from the government at Pensacola, and it would be folly to seek counsel from the Georgians, who regarded them as enemies because they desired to be neutrals, living in peace between hostile communities, engaged in a conflict in which the Indian could feel no interest. It was just at this juncture that Alexander McGillivray found himself amongst his people. Long and impatiently had they awaited the advent of the representative of the Ho-tal-gee, the grand chieftain, who for so many years had been studying that wisdom of the white man, which made him the Indian’s superior; that wisdom which now acquired by him, was to be exercised for the salvation of his people. Great, therefore, was the satisfaction produced the advent of such a disinterested counselor and guide. He is hardly well within the nation before a grand council is called at Coweta, on the Chattahoochee, over which he was to preside, and formally assume the hegemony of the Ho-tal-gee. To a thoughtful mind there is a pathos in this scene which appeals to every generous nature! It comes like the despairing appeal of infancy to manhood for help! It is the ignorance of the savage stretching out its supplicating hands to the white man’s wisdom as his only refuge. One of the most striking powers which McGillivray possessed, was his ability to win and retain the childlike confidence of his people, and thereby exercise boundless control over them. He was not a soldier, or a man of blood, in any sense of the term. He was essentially a statesman and a diplomat. The conquests of peace only had any fascination for him. His ambition was to save and civilize his people. That such a man should bend to his will in the paths of peace a numerous population of warlike savages, to whom the war-whoop was music, and scalping the most inviting pastime, is a domination over brute instincts of which history contains very few examples.