Suspicious of the objects which prompted this proposal, the Indians were unwilling to meet the commissioners. Runners were sent to the different bands, and eventually some thirty or forty were collected. These were declared by the commissioners to represent a majority of the Seminole tribe, and (Sept. 18) they proceeded to form the treaty of "Camp Moultrie." The letter of instructions, from the Secretary of War, was specific on one point only. The commissioners were directed to so arrange the treaty, as to constrain the Indians to settle within the territory south of Tampa Bay, excluded from the coast on all sides by a strip of country at least fifteen miles in width. This would have taken from them their most fertile lands on the Suwanee River, the Appalachicola River, and in the vicinity of the Mickasukie Lake. Some six chiefs, who had taken possession of the plantations which had been opened and cultivated by the Exiles murdered at "Blount's Fort," refused to sign the treaty. They were, however, prevailed upon to agree to the treaty, when it had been so modified as to give them each a reservation of fertile lands, to meet their own necessities. By agreeing to these stipulations, the commissioners obtained their signatures to the treaty--the United States guaranteeing to the Indians peaceable possession of the country and reservations assigned them. They also covenanted to "_take the Florida Indians under their care and patronage, and_ AFFORD THEM PROTECTION AGAINST ALL PERSONS WHATSOEVER," and to "_restrain and prevent all white persons_ from hunting, settling, or otherwise _intruding_, upon said lands." They also agreed to pay the Indians six thousand dollars in cattle and hogs, furnish them with provisions to support them one year, and pay them five thousand dollars annually for twenty years. But one great object of the treaty was embraced in the seventh Article, which was expressed in the following language: "The chiefs and warriors aforesaid, for themselves and tribes, stipulate to be active and vigilant in preventing the retreating to, or passing through, the district, or country assigned them, of any absconding slave, or fugitives from justice; and they further agree _to use all necessary exertions to apprehend and deliver the same to the agent_, who shall receive orders to compensate them agreeably to the trouble and expense incurred."