The introduction of a considerable degree of civilization among the Cherokees, has been attended {133} with the usual consequence of inequality in the distribution of property, and a larger share of the evils resulting from that inequality, than are known among untutored savages. Encroachments upon the newly-established rights of exclusive possession have been frequent, and have rendered the numerous class of the poor among the Cherokees troublesome neighbours, both to the wealthy of their own nation, and to those of the white settlers in their vicinity who had any thing to lose. But wealth seldom finds itself destitute of the means of protection. Three bands of regulators, or troops of light horse, as they are sometimes called, are maintained among the Cherokees, consisting each of ten men well armed and mounted, and invested with an almost unlimited authority.[14] A few days previous to our arrival at Point Pleasant, a young man had been apprehended by one of these bands of regulators, on suspicion of horse-theft. On examination, the supposed delinquent proved stubborn and refractory, whereupon the captain ordered the infliction of fifty lashes; and this not seeming to produce the desired effect, an additional fifty was commenced, when the culprit confessed himself guilty, and disclosed the whole transaction, in which he had been concerned. We were called upon for advice in the case of the Osage prisoners, a young woman and three children labouring under an attack of intermitting fever. The young woman we found sitting upon the floor in a little cabin, near the trading-house, and crying bitterly, not more, as we were informed, on account of ill-health, than of her reluctance to return to the Osages. She had been long among the Cherokees, whose customs she had adopted, and among whom she had formed attachments.