_Commissioners appointed to inquire into Cherokee feuds._--In consequence of his determination, as above stated, the President appointed General R. Jones, Col. R. B. Mason, and P. M. Butler commissioners, with instructions[479] to proceed to the Cherokee country and ascertain if any considerable portion of the Cherokee people were arrayed in hostile feeling toward those who ruled the nation; whether a corresponding disposition and feeling prevailed among the majority who administered the government toward the minority; the lengths of oppression, resistance, and violence to which the excitement of each against the other had severally led the opposing parties, and whether the discontent was of such extent and intensity among the great mass of the Old Settler and Treaty parties as to forbid their living peaceably together under the same government with the Ross party. This commission convened at Fort Gibson on the 16th of November,[480] but their labors resulted in nothing of practical benefit to the sorely distressed Cherokees. DEATH OF SEQUOYAH OR GEORGE GUESS. Sequoyah or George Guess, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, removed to the country west of the Mississippi long anterior to the treaty of 1835,[481] and was for several years one of the national council of the Western Cherokees. In the year 1843 he left his home for Mexico in quest of several scattered bands of Cherokees who had wandered off to that distant region, and whom it was his intention to collect together with a view to inducing them to return and become again united with their friends and kindred. He did not meet with the success anticipated. Being quite aged, and becoming worn out and destitute, he was unable without assistance to make the return trip to his home. Agent Butler, learning of his condition, reported the fact to the Indian Department[482] and asked that sufficient funds be placed at his disposal for the purpose of sending messengers to bring the old man back. Two hundred dollars were authorized[483] to be expended for the purpose, and Oo-no-leh, a Cherokee, was sent on the errand of mercy, but upon reaching Red River he encountered a party of Cherokees from Mexico who advised him that Guess had died in the preceding July, and that his remains were interred at San Fernando.[484] OLD SETTLER AND TREATY PARTIES PROPOSE TO REMOVE TO MEXICO.