The Indian troubles in the Southwest were made particularly serious by the ability of the head-chief of the Creek nation, Alexander McGillivray, the authentic facts of whose career might seem too wildly improbable even for the uses of melodrama. His grandmother was a full-blooded Creek of high standing in the nation. She had a daughter by Captain Marchand, a French officer. This daughter, who is described as a bewitching beauty, was taken to wife by Lachland McGillivray, a Scotchman engaged in the Indian trade. A son was born who, at the age of ten, was sent by his father to Charleston to be educated, where he remained nearly seven years receiving instruction both in English and Latin. This son, Alexander, was intended by his father for civilized life, and when he was seventeen he was placed with a business house in Savannah. During the Revolutionary War the father took the Tory side and his property was confiscated. The son took refuge with his Indian kinsfolk, and acquired in their councils an ascendancy which also extended to the Seminole tribe. His position and influence made his favor an important object with all powers having American interests. During the war the British conferred upon him the rank and pay of a colonel. In 1784, as the representative of the Creek and Seminole nations, he formed a treaty of alliance with Spain, by the terms of which he became a Spanish commissary with the rank and pay of a colonel. Against the State of Georgia, the Creek nation had grievances which McGillivray was able to voice with a vigor and an eloquence that compelled attention. It was the old story, so often repeated in American history, of encroachments upon Indian territory. Attempts at negotiation had been made by the old government, and these were now renewed by Washington with no better result. McGillivray met the commissioners, but left on finding that they had no intention of restoring the Indian lands that had been taken. A formidable Indian war seemed imminent, but Washington, whose own frontier experience made him well versed in Indian affairs, judged correctly that the way to handle the situation was to induce McGillivray to come to New York, though, as he noted in his diary, the matter must be so managed that the "government might not appear to be an agent in it, or suffer in its dignity if the attempt to get him here should not succeed." With his habitual caution, Washington considered the point whether he could send out an agent without consulting the Senate on the appointment, and he instructed General Knox "to take the opinion of the Chief Justice of the United States and the Secretary of the Treasury." The assurances obtained were such that Washington selected an experienced frontier commander, Colonel Marinus Willett of New York, and impressed upon him the importance of bringing the Indian chiefs to New York, pointing out "the arguments justifiable for him to use to effect this, with such lures as respected