The entire emigration was to be completed in three years, one-third going annually, commencing in the year 1833, and to be finished in the years 1834, and 1835. The deputation sent to the west of the Mississippi, completed their agreement with the Creeks on the 28th of March, 1833; they returned home immediately, and one-third of the tribe was to remove that year. Every thing was got ready on the part of the United States, both to transport the Indians to their new homes, and to subsist them for a year after their arrival there. But, instead of removing, the Indians began to invent excuses, and to interpose delays, and to pass off the time without commencing the emigration. The year 1833, in which one-third of the tribe were to remove, passed off without any removal; the year 1834, in which another third was to go, was passed off in the same manner; the year 1835, in which the emigration was to have been completed, passed away, and the emigration was not begun. On the contrary, on the last days of the last month of that year, while the United States was still peaceably urging the removal, an accumulation of treacherous and horrible assassinations and massacres were committed. The United States agent, General Thompson, Lieutenant Smith, of the artillery, and five others, were assassinated in sight of Fort King; two expresses were murdered; and Major Dade's command was massacred. In their excuses and pretexts for not removing, the Indians never thought of the reasons which have been supplied to them on this floor. They never thought of alleging fraud. Their pretexts were frivolous; as that it was a long distance, and that bad Indians lived in that country, and that the old treaty of Fort Moultrie allowed them twenty years to live in Florida. Their real motive was the desire of blood and pillage on the part of many Indians, and still more on the part of the five hundred runaway negroes mixed up among them; and who believed that they could carry on their system of robbery and murder with impunity, and that the swamps of the country would for ever protect them against the pursuit of the whites.