Such was, undoubtedly, the view of General Jessup, who, on the fourteenth of September, wrote the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, saying, "The Seminole negro prisoners are now the _property of the public_. I have promised Abraham the freedom of his family, if he prove faithful _to us_; and I shall surely hang him if he be not faithful."[100] This refinement in cruelty by which the life and liberty of a man and his family is held out as a bribe to induce him to prove traitor to his own kindred and nation, or to be hanged, and his family enslaved in case of refusal, appears worthy a place in the history of our Government, in order that our successors may have a correct idea of its administration. The intention to enslave Abraham's wife, who was an Indian woman and had been the wife of the former chief of the _nation_, and now the wife of the principal chief of the Exiles, exhibits a total disregard of the feelings and sympathies of the human heart, as well as of the prejudices and condition of both Exiles and Seminoles. These Exiles were at Fort Pike, near New Orleans, where we will leave them for the present, to pursue our narrative of events which were transpiring in Florida. On the ninth of September, General Jessup wrote Lieutenant Searle, as follows: "You will muster the Creek regiment out of service, and honorably discharge them. Then you will proceed to New Orleans, and obtain funds to pay the Creeks for the captured negroes. The chiefs and warriors who were actually in the field at the time of the capture of negroes are alone to receive any part of the sum allowed. Those who remained in camp and did not march are to receive nothing. "You will examine the prisoners at 'Fort Pike,' (the ninety Exiles,) and cause an accurate description to be taken of them, specifying their names, ages, height, sex, and such other particulars as you may deem important. They must all be comfortably clothed, at the public expense, immediately, by the Assistant Quarter-Master at New Orleans, who will keep them properly clad."