“It would have afforded me a very sensible pleasure, had I been enabled by the resolution of the Council to have returned a satisfactory answer to your letter of the 26th of last month. In compliance with your request, I the last day of the sessions presented to the board your account, and the opinion of the committee to which it was referred. It was maturely considered and debated, and, extremely contrary to my hopes, disapproved of and rejected; for this reason principally, that you went, as they were persuaded, not by any order, to the Cherokee nation, but in pursuit of your own profit or pleasure, * * * * * * * * *, &c. (Signed) N. Walthoe.” I was quite astonished to find, on the receipt of this letter, that these gentlemen imagined I had made a party of pleasure to a savage country, in the winter season; or that I went in the view of profit, with a stock of twenty pounds worth of goods, most of which I distributed amongst the necessitous prisoners. Had I intended profit, I should certainly have taken the safest way, and a sufficient quantity of goods to have recompensed me for all my fatigues and danger, as I surely did not expect presents in the Cherokee country. I went to convince the Indians of our sincerity, to know the navigation, and to serve my country. Let others take care how they precipitate themselves to serve so ungrateful a ——. But the reader, by this time, is too well acquainted with the particulars of my journey, to pass judgment with these gentlemen. I have already shewn, that my expences and losses, during that unfortunate jaunt, was upwards of an hundred pounds in ready money, besides what I gave them in presents at their return to their own country, and what I am still indebted for on their account. It was objected, that I was not ordered. I own it. Do they know Col. Stephen? Did he ever order any officer on such a service? Is my service of less merit, because I offered myself to do what, tho’ necessary, he could not well command? Does the brave volunteer, who desires to mount the breach, merit less than the coward, whose officer compells him to it? No, certainly. We should praise and countenance such forwardness; yet for this same reason have I been refused my expences. Can any one think Col. Stephen would command any officer amongst a savage and unsettled enemy, whose hands were still reeking, as I may say, with the blood of Demeré and the garrison of Fort Loudoun, massacred after they had capitulated, and were marching home according to agreement, who have no laws, and are both judges and executors of their revenge?