I have boxed the Indian Papers which I found at this place, and this day send them by wagons to Leavenworth City, Kansas, to be thence forwarded by the American Express Company. There seems to have been considerable delay in their transmittal after they had passed into the custodianship of the express company but they eventually reached the Indian Office and to-day form part of the Fort Smith collection. [165] The melodious refrain of this, That fine Arkansas gentleman, Close to the Choctaw line. unconsciously brings our one of the very ideas sought to be conveyed by the present chapter; namely, the extremely close connection between Arkansas and Indian Territory. [166] This old, old song, "written on the model and to the air of 'The Old Country Gentleman'," runs thus: The song I'll sing, though lately made, it tells of olden days, Of a good old Scottish gentleman, of good old Scottish ways; When our barons bold kept house and hold, and sung their olden lays And drove with speed across the Tweed, auld Scotland's bluidy faes, Like brave old Scottish gentlemen, all of the olden time. _Scottish Songs_, printed by W. G. Blackie and Company (Glasgow). [167] The commissioners to whom Ogden referred in his letter of February 15, 1861, may have been the tangible evidence of Governor Rector's first attempt to influence the Indians. [168] Fleming, _Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama_, 46, footnote 1. [169] Smith, _Debates of the Alabama Convention_, 443-444; _Official Records_, fourth ser., vol i, 3. [170] Governor Moore had appointed the commissioners, including Hubbard, on his own initiative before the convention met. See his address, Smith's _Debates_, 35. [171] House _Journal_, Arkansas, 38. [172] House _Journal_, Arkansas, 314, 445. [173] January 12, 1861. [174] The resolution is found in House _Journal_, Arkansas, 167 and in _Official Records_, fourth ser., vol. i, 307. Its text is as follows: _Resolved_, That no money or property of any kind whatever, now in the hands of the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, or of any Indian agent, being placed there, or designed for the Indians on the western frontier of Arkansas, shall be seized, but that the same shall so remain to be applied to and for the use of the several Indian Nations, faithfully, as was designed when so placed in their hands for disbursement. And the people of the State of Arkansas, here in sovereign convention assembled, do hereby pledge the sovereignty of the State of Arkansas, that everything in their power shall be done to compel a faithful application of all money and property now in the hands of persons or agents designed and intended for the several Indian tribes west of Arkansas. Adopted in and by the convention May 9, 1861. DAVID WALKER, President of the Arkansas State Convention. Attest. ELIAS C. BOUDINOT, Secretary of the Convention. [175]