In this letter, General Jessup begins to modify his former position. He still entertains no fear of the Indians, if _their_ negroes or other property be not interfered with, and suggests the hope that he may effect an arrangement with the Indians and Indian negroes to bring in (that is, to surrender up,) the negroes _taken during the war_. This letter gives the first evidence, which we find on record, of General Jessup's intention to modify or disregard the solemn compact he had made, or to make another with the Indians and Indian negroes by which they should betray those who had fled to them during the war. But that he did make some arrangement of that character with the chiefs, we are led to infer from a letter bearing date May fifth, 1837, addressed to General Jessup by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, informing him that his articles of capitulation with the Seminoles had been submitted to the Secretary of War, "_together with his letters of the first and fifteenth of April, and had been approved_;" and the writer then adds: "In relation to the negroes captured by the Seminoles and to be _surrendered_, I am directed to say, that your arrangement for having them delivered to officers of posts on the St. John's River, _is approved_."[95] This letter also directs General Jessup to keep a registry of all negroes delivered to citizens, showing their names, age, sex, etc. A general order, dated Tampa Bay, April fifth, and numbered seventy-nine, announces first, "The commanding General has reason to believe that the interference of unprincipled white men with the _negro property of the Seminole Indians_ will prevent their emigration, and lead to a renewal of the war. Responsible as he is for the peace and security of the country, he will not permit such interference under any pretense whatsoever. And he therefore orders that no white man, not in the service of the United States, be allowed to enter any part of the territory, between the St. John's and the Gulf of Mexico, south of Fort Drane." On the eighth of April, General Jessup wrote Colonel Harney, saying, "I have made an arrangement with the chiefs _to-day_ to surrender the negroes of white men, particularly those taken during the war."