[62] Vide Letter of Col. Brooke to Col. Humphreys, 6 May, 1828, contained in the above cited Document. [63] Vide Letter of Judge Smith, May 10, 1828, contained in same Document. [64] Vide Statement of John Hick, 15 August, 1828. Ex. Doc. 271, before quoted. [65] Vide Letter of Gad Humphreys, Oct. 20, 1828. It probably was the first time the proposition was submitted to the Seminoles. [66] Even Mr. Adams, when President, continued in office those men who had been placed there by his predecessors. [67] Vide Sprague's History of the Florida War. [68] Vide Documents relating to the Florida War, 1st Session, XXIVth Congress. [69] Vide Sprague's History of the Florida War. [70] Vide Ex. Doc. 271, XXIVth Congress, 1st Session, pages 43 and 44. [71] The Author, while serving in Congress in 1847-8 was, by the Speaker, placed upon the committee of Indian Affairs. While serving on that committee, the Creek Indians applied for the return of this money which had belonged to them, but had been wrongfully paid over by Congress to the slaveholders of Georgia, some fourteen years previously. The case was referred to the Author, as sub-committee, who reported that the money, in justice, in equity, and in law, belonged to the Indians; that its payment to the slaveholders was unjust and wrong, and that it ought to be paid to the Indians. The report was confirmed, and the money paid to the Indians. The justice of the cause was so obvious that it met with no opposition, and by the vote of both Houses it now stands acknowledged and declared that this sum of $141,000 was taken from the pockets of the laboring men of our Nation, and paid to those slaveholders for _imaginary slave children who were never born_; nor have we been able to learn that an objection was raised, or protest uttered, by any Northern member of Congress. [72] Vide Opinion of Judge Cameron, pages 35 and 36 of Doc. 271, last quoted. [73] NOTE.--When the author, in 1841, denounced this transaction, in the House of Representatives, and spoke of these slave-catchers as _Pirates_, Hon. Mark A. Cooper, of Georgia, became indignant at the denunciation;--said he was well acquainted with the men who seized and enslaved these people; that they were _honorable men_, and that he took them by the hand almost daily while at home. [74] The statement of these facts may be found in Ex. Document, 1st Sess. XXIVth Congress. [75] Vide Ex. Doc., 1st Sess. XXIVth Congress, page 14. [76] Vide his letter at length in the Document last quoted. [77] Vide Sprague's Florida War. [78] Lieutenant Reynolds, while conducting the first party of emigrants West, in 1841, found among the Exiles persons who possessed so much Spanish blood, that he offered to leave them at New Orleans, and some of them accepted the offer. He left them in that city, and they probably now pass for Spaniards.