"The cupidity was appealed to, for the Governor, in a proclamation, calls upon all, either individually, or in such parties as they may organize, to kill and destroy as enemies of the country, wherever they may be found, all such hostile Indians; authorizing them to hold, to their own use and benefit, all the property of said hostile Indians they may capture. What Indians he would ever term friendly, it is impossible to tell." I offer the following statement of the circumstances under which this proclamation was issued by the Hon. D. A. Chever. It is as follows: "EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, COLORADO TERRITORY, August 21, 1865. "I, David A. Chever, Clerk in the office of the Governor of the territory of Colorado, do solemnly swear that the people of said territory, from the Purgatoire to the Cache la Poudre rivers, a distance of over two hundred miles, and for a like distance along the Platte river, being the whole of our settlements on the plains, were thrown into the greatest alarm and consternation by numerous and almost simultaneous attacks and depredations by hostile Indians early last summer; that they left their unreaped crops, and collecting into communities built blockhouses and stockades for protection at central points throughout the long line of settlements; that those living in the vicinity of Denver City fled to it, and that the people of said city were in great fear of sharing the fate of New Ulm, Minnesota; that the threatened loss of crops, and the interruption of communication with the states by the combined hostilities, threatened the very existence of the whole people; that this feeling of danger was universal; that a flood of petitions and deputations poured into this office, from the people of all parts of the territory, praying for protection, and for arms and authority to protect themselves; that the defects of the militia law and the want of means to provide for defense was proved by the failure of this department, after the utmost endeavors, to secure an effective organization under it; that reliable reports of the presence of a large body of hostile warriors at no great distance east of this place were received, which reports were afterwards proved to be true, by the statement of Elbridge Gerry (page 232, Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1864); that repeated and urgent applications to the War Department for protection and authority to raise troops for the purpose had failed; that urgent applications to department and