As the Government took no efficient steps to preserve the peace, either by chastising the Indians or by bridling the ill-judged vengeance of the frontier inhabitants, many of the latter soon grew to hate and despise those by whom they were neither protected nor restrained. The disorderly element got the upper hand on the Georgia frontier, where the backwoodsmen did all they could to involve the nation in a general Indian war; and displayed the most defiant and mutinous spirit toward the officers, civil and military, of the United States Government. [Footnote: _Do_., Seagrove to the President, Rock Landing, on the Oconee, in Georgia, July 17, 1792.] As for the Creeks, Seagrove found it exceedingly hard to tell who of them were traitors and who were not; and indeed the chiefs would probably themselves have found the task difficult, for they were obliged to waver more or less in their course as the fickle tribesmen were swayed by impulses towards peace or war. One of the men whom Seagrove finally grew to regard as a confirmed traitor was the chief, McGillivray. He was probably quite right in his estimate of the half-breed's character; and, on the other hand, McGillivray doubtless had as an excuse the fact that the perpetual intrigues of Spanish officers, American traders, British adventurers, Creek chiefs who wished peace, and Creek warriors who wished war, made it out of the question for him to follow any settled policy. He wrote to Seagrove: "It is no wonder the Indians are distracted, when they are tampered with on every side. I am myself in the situation of a keeper of Bedlam, and nearly fit for an inhabitant." [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., McGillivray to Seagrove, May 18, 1793.] However, what he did amounted to but little, for his influence had greatly waned, and in 1793 he died. The Indians the Aggressors. On the Georgia frontier the backwoodsmen were very rough and lawless, and were always prone to make aggressions on the red men; nevertheless, even in the case of Georgia in 1791 and '92, the chief fault lay with the Indians. They refused to make good the land cession which they had solemnly guaranteed at the treaty of New York, and which certain of their towns had previously covenanted to make in the various more or less fraudulent treaties entered into with the State of Georgia separately. In addition to this their plundering parties continually went among the Georgians. The latter, in their efforts to retaliate, struck the hostile and the peaceful alike; and as time went on they made ready to take forcible possession of the lands they coveted, without regard to whether or not these lands had been ceded in fair treaty.