The truth was that while the Federal Government sincerely desired peace, and strove to bring it about, the northwestern tribes were resolutely bent on war; and the frontiersmen themselves showed nearly as much inclination for hostilities as the Indians. [Footnote: _Do._, Indian Affairs. Letter of P. Mühlenberg, July 5, 1784.] They were equally anxious to intrude on the Government and on the Indian lands; for they were adventurous, the lands were valuable, and they hated the Indians, and looked down on the weak Federal authority. [Footnote: _Do._, Report of H. Knox, April, 1787.] They often made what were legally worthless "tomahawk claims," and objected almost as much as the Indians to the work of the regular Government surveyors. [Footnote: _Do._, 150, vol. ii., p. 548.] Even the men of note, men like George Rogers Clark, were often engaged in schemes to encroach on the land north of the Ohio: drawing on themselves the bitter reproaches not only of the Federal authorities, but also of the Virginia Government, for their cruel readiness to jeopardize the country by incurring the wrath of the Indians. [Footnote: draper MSS. Benj. Harrison to G. R. Clark, August 19, 1784.] The more lawless whites were as little amenable to authority as the Indians themselves; and at the very moment when a peace was being negotiated one side or the other would commit some brutal murder. While the chiefs and old Indians were delivering long-winded speeches to the Peace Commissioners, bands of young braves committed horrible ravages among the lonely settlements. [Footnote: State Dept. MSS., No. 56, pp. 279 and 333; No. 60, p. 297, etc.] Now a drunken Indian at Fort Pitt murdered an innocent white man, the local garrison of regular troops saving him with difficulty from being lynched [Footnote: Denny's Journal, p. 259.]; now a band of white ruffians gathered to attack some peaceable Indians who had come in to treat [Footnote: State Dept. MSS., No. 56, p. 255.]; again a white man murdered an unoffending Indian, and was seized by a Federal officer, and thrown into chains, to the great indignation of his brutal companions [Footnote: _Do_., No. 150, vol. ii., p. 296.]; and yet again another white man murdered an Indian, and escaped to the woods before he could be arrested. [Footnote: Draper MSS. Clark, Croghan, and Others to Delawares, August 28, 1785.] Bloodshed Begun.