it is a certain fact, that the Cherokees _never_ had any towns or settlements in the country, _Southward_ of the Great Kenhawa;--that they do _not_ hunt there, and that neither the Six Nations, Shawanesse nor Delawares, do _now_ reside or hunt on the Southerly side of the river Ohio, nor did _not_ for several years _before_ they sold the country to the King.--These are facts, which can be easily and fully proved. In October 1768, at a congress held with the Six Nations at Fort Stanwix, they observed to Sir William Johnson: "Now, brother, you who know all our affairs, must be sensible, that _our_ rights go much farther to the _Southward_ than the _Kenhawa_,--and that we have a very good and clear title as far _South_ as the _Cherokee River_, which we cannot allow to be the right of any other Indians, without doing wrong to our posterity, and acting unworthy those warriors who fought and conquered it;--we therefore expect this our right will be considered." In November 1768, the Six Nations sold to the King all the country on the Southerly side of the river Ohio, as far as to the Cherokee river; but notwithstanding that sale, as soon as it was understood in Virginia, that government _favoured_ the pretensions of the Cherokees, and that Dr. Walker and Colonel Lewis (the commissioners sent from that colony to the congress at Fort Stanwix) had returned from thence, the late Lord Bottetourt sent these gentlemen to Charles-town, South-Carolina, to endeavour to convince Mr. Stuart, the Southern superintendent of Indian affairs, of the necessity of enlarging the boundary line, which he had settled with the Cherokees;--and to run it from the _Great Kenhawa_ to Holston's river.--These gentlemen were appointed commissioners by his Lordship, as they had been long conversant in Indian affairs, and were well acquainted with the actual extent of the Cherokee country.--Whilst these commissioners were in South Carolina, they wrote a letter to Mr. Stuart, as he had been but a very few years in the Indian service, (and could not, from the nature of his former employment, be supposed to be properly informed about the Cherokee territory), respecting the claims of the Cherokees to the lands _Southward_ of the Great Kenhawa, and therein they expressed themselves as follows: "Charles-town, South Carolina, February 2, 1769. "The country _Southward_ of _the Big Kenhawa was never claimed by the Cherokees_, and now is the property of the Crown, as Sir William Johnson purchased it of the Six Nations at a very considerable expence, and took a deed of cession from them at Fort Stanwix."