But, to show that no obligation whatever rested on the chiefs in this matter, his next interrogatories were, "Have the chiefs of the Nation held a Council in relation to the subjects of the talk at Fort King? What chiefs attended that Council, and what was their decision?" These questions seem to admit, that Co-Hadjo had merely promised to lay the subject before the chiefs in Council; and here we find the reasons, on the part of General Jessup, for not laying the arrangement before the people: yet, under these circumstances, that officer charges bad faith upon the Indians and Exiles, in renewing the war. The Exiles possessed no means of informing the American people, and other nations, as to these facts, or of maintaining their honor against this charge of having violated their plighted faith. In renewing hostilities, General Jessup appears to have fully determined on carrying out the designs of General Jackson, in 1816, when he directed General Gaines to "destroy the fort, and _return the slaves to their owners_." From this time forward, he lent his energies, and the power of the army, to the object of capturing and returning slaves. He also deemed it necessary to change the mode of prosecuting the war, and to make it a series of forays for the capture and enslavement of the Exiles. He had, the previous year, entered into a contract with the Creek Indians, by which he stipulated to pay them a large pecuniary compensation, and to allow them to hold all the plunder (negroes) whom they might capture, as _property_. He now evidently believed that such inducements, held out to the Florida militia, would have an effect to stimulate them to greater effort. On the eleventh of June, he wrote Colonel Warren, saying, "There is no obligation to spare the property of the Indians; they have not spared that of the citizens. Their _negroes_, cattle and horses, as well as other property which they possess, will belong to the corps by which they are captured." The same orders were communicated to the Commandants of other posts, and to the militia from other States; and the system by which the _negroes and other property_ were to be distributed among the captors, was prescribed in a letter to Colonel Heilman, declaring the field officers entitled to _three shares_, the company officers to receive _two shares_, and the non-commissioned officers and soldiers _one share each_.