President Jefferson transmitted it to the Senate with a favorable message,[178] but before any action was taken by that body it was ascertained that the tract selected and ceded was within the limits of the State of Tennessee. The matter of ratification was therefore postponed, with the hope that the State of Tennessee would consent to relinquish her claim to the land. In this the President was disappointed. No further action was taken for several years, until, it having become evident that no concession would be made in the matter by the legislature of Tennessee, the United States Senate[179] unanimously rejected the treaty. In consequence of this action, Colonel Earle made claim[180] against the Government either for the value of his time and expenses incurred in exploring the Cherokee country, selecting the site, and procuring the conclusion of the treaty, or, as an alternative, that the consent of the Cherokees should be secured to the cession of another tract of similar area and character. The latter proposition was accepted, and Agent Meigs was advised[181] that Mr. Earle had been granted permission to select some other site suitable for his iron works, and instructed that in case he did so, negotiations should again be opened with the Cherokees for an exchange of the tract covered by the cession of 1807 for the one newly selected. Success, however, does not seem to have attended this second attempt, and Agent Meigs was advised[182] by the Secretary of War that $985 had been paid Colonel Earle for damages sustained by him in the Cherokee country while detained there by the Indians, which amount must be deducted from the Cherokee annuity. A third attempt of a similar character was made in 1815, when[183] Colonel Earle was appointed to negotiate, in conjunction with the Indian agent, a treaty with the Cherokees or Chickasaws for the purchase of a 6-mile square tract for the erection of his proposed iron works. Like the previous efforts, it was without results.[184] TENNESSEE FAILS TO CONCLUDE A TREATY WITH THE CHEROKEES. Congress on the 18th of April, 1806,[185] had passed an act entitled "An act to authorize the State of Tennessee to issue grants and perfect titles to certain lands therein described, and to settle claims to the vacant and unappropriated lands within the same."