"I know nothing of the negroes in question, nor of the subject, further than what is contained in the communication above referred to; _but I must state distinctly for the information of all concerned, that, while I shall hold myself ever ready to do the utmost in my power to get the Indians and their negroes out of Florida, as well as to remove them to their new homes west of the Mississippi_, I CANNOT FOR A MOMENT CONSENT TO MEDDLE WITH THIS TRANSACTION, _or to be concerned for the benefit of Collins, the Creek Indians, or any one else_." This language was received at the War Department without reproof, although the Secretary was from South Carolina, bred up in the chivalrous doctrines of the Palmetto State. He quietly suffered a Brigadier General thus plainly to express his contempt for this slave-dealing transaction, in which not only the War Department, but the President of the United States, was involved. He appears to have been willing to encounter almost any kind of disrespect, rather than call public attention to the subject. In the meantime other claims were presented to the Department for those Exiles, or portions of those, who had been captured by the Creeks.[120] Gad Humphreys filed with the Secretary of War a list of forty-seven slaves who had fled from him in 1830, stating that they had gone to the Seminoles, and that a part of them had been sent to Fort Pike. Colonel Humphreys appeared to regard himself as entitled to the possession of those people; although by the treaty of Payne's Landing the Seminoles had paid for all slaves residing with them prior to 1832; and had been released from all further demands on account of such slaves.