It has been said by persons of the States, that the Indians were countenanced in committing these enormities by people on the British frontiers, and liberal abuse has been bestowed on the government for having aided, by distributing amongst them guns, tomahawks, and other hostile weapons. That the Indians were incited by presents, and other means, to act against the people of the colonies, during the American war, must be admitted; but that, after peace was concluded, the same line of conduct was pursued towards them, is an aspersion equally false and malicious. To the conduct of the people of the States themselves alone, and to no other cause, is unquestionably to be attributed the continuance of the warfare between them and the Indians, after the definitive treaty of peace was signed. Instead of then taking the opportunity to reconcile the Indians, as they might easily have done by presents, and by treating them with kindness, they still continued hostile towards them; they looked upon them, as indeed they still do, merely as wild beasts, that ought to be banished from the face of the earth; and actuated by that insatiable spirit of avarice, and that restless and dissatisfied turn of mind, which I have so frequently noticed, instead of keeping within their territories, where millions of acres remained unoccupied, but no part, however, of which could be had without being paid for, they crossed their boundary lines, and fixed themselves in the territory of the Indians, without ever previously gaining the consent of these people. The Indians, nice about their boundary line beyond any other nations, perhaps, in the world, that have such extensive dominions in proportion to their numbers, made no scruple to attack, to plunder, and even to murder these intruders, when a fit opportunity offered. The whites endeavoured to repel their attacks, and shot them with as much unconcern as they would either a wolf or a bear. In their expeditions against the white settlers, the Indians frequently were driven back with loss; but their ill success only urged them to return with redoubled fury, and their well-known revengeful disposition leading them on all occasions to seek blood for blood, they were not merely satisfied with murdering the whole families of the settlers who had wounded or killed their chiefs or warriors, but oftentimes, in order to appease the manes of their comrades, they crossed their boundary line in turn, and committed most dreadful depredations amongst the peaceable white inhabitants in the States, who were in no manner implicated in the ill conduct of the men who had encroached upon the Indian territories. Here also, if they happened to be repulsed, or to lose a friend, they returned to seek fresh revenge; and as it seldom happened that they did escape without loss, their excesses and barbarities, instead of diminishing, were becoming greater every year. The attention of the