We recollect that you did not promise to punish those who killed our people, and we now ask, was it intended that your people should kill the Senecas, and not only remain unpunished by you, but be protected by you against the revenge of the next of kin? Father! These are to us very great things. We know that you are very strong, and we have heard that you are wise, and we wait to hear your answer to what we said, that we may know that you are just. ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT WASHINGTON TO CORNPLANTER, DEC. 29, 1790. _The reply of the President of the United States, to the Speech of_ THE CORNPLANTER, HALF-TOWN _and_ GREAT TREE, _Chiefs and Counsellors of the Seneka Nations of Indians_. I, the President of the United States, by my own mouth, and by a written Speech, signed by own hand and sealed with the seal of the United States, speak to the Seneka nation, and desire their attention, and that they would keep this Speech in remembrance of the friendship of the United States. I have received your Speech with satisfaction, as a proof of your confidence in the justice of the United States--and I have attentively examined the several objects which you have laid before me, whether delivered by your Chiefs at Tioga Point, in the last month, to Colonel PICKERING, or laid before me, in the present month, by THE CORNPLANTER, and the other Seneka Chiefs, now in Philadelphia. In the first place, I observe to you, and I request it may sink deep in your minds, that it is my desire, and the desire of the United States, that all the miseries of the late war should be forgotten and buried forever. That in future the United States and the Six Nations should be truly brothers, promoting each other's prosperity by acts of mutual friendship and justice. I am not uninformed that the Six Nations have been led into some difficulties with respect to the sale of their lands since the peace. But I must inform you that these evils arose before the present government of the United States was established, when the separate States and individuals under their authority, undertook to treat with the Indian tribes respecting the sale of their lands. But the case is now entirely altered--the general government only has the power to treat with the Indian nations, and any treaty formed and held without its authority, will not be binding. Here then is the security for the remainder of your lands.--No State, nor person, can purchase your lands, unless at some public treaty held under the authority of the United States. The general government will never consent to your being defrauded. But it will protect you in all your rights.