Based upon this proposition, a pioneer delegation of the Indians visited that country in the year 1809, and upon their report large numbers (about 2,000, as reported by Agent Meigs) of the nation signified their intention of removal as early as the autumn of that year. The United States authorities were not as yet prepared to defray the pecuniary expense of so large a migration. The agent was therefore directed to discourage for the present anything except the removal of individual families.[194] The situation remained unchanged until the spring of 1811,[195] when the Secretary of War informed Agent Meigs that time and circumstances had rendered it expedient to revive the subject of a general removal and exchange of lands. The latter was advised that it was very desirable to secure a cession of the Cherokee lands lying within the States of Tennessee and South Carolina, and that in case the whole nation could be brought to agree to the proposition of ceding these tracts, as the proportionate share of the "emigrant party," in exchange for lands to be assigned such party on White and Arkansas Rivers, he would be authorized and directed to negotiate a treaty with the Cherokee Nation for that purpose. From this time the subject remained _in statu quo_ for several years, except that small parties of Cherokees, consisting of a few individuals or families, continued to emigrate to the "promised land." It is perhaps interesting to state, in connection with this emigration movement of the Cherokees, that it was primarily inaugurated shortly after the treaty of 1785, at Hopewell, when a few of those dissatisfied with the terms of that instrument embarked in pirogues, and, descending the Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers, reached and ascended the Saint Francis, then in the Spanish province of Louisiana, where they formed a settlement, from whence in a few years they removed to a more satisfactory location on White River. Here they were joined from time to time by their dissatisfied eastern brethren, in families and small parties, until they numbered, prior to the treaty of 1817, between two and three thousand souls. EFFORTS OF SOUTH CAROLINA TO EXTINGUISH CHEROKEE TITLE.