You know that the frontiers of her provinces,
as well as of our States, are inhabited by Indians holding justly the
right of occupation, and leaving to Spain and to us only the claim of
excluding other nations from among them, and of becoming ourselves the
purchasers of such portions of land, from time to time, as they choose
to sell. We have thought that the dictates of interest as well as
humanity enjoined mutual endeavors with those Indians to live in peace
with both nations, and we have scrupulously observed that conduct.
Our agent with the Indians bordering on the territories of Spain has
a standing instruction to use his best endeavors to prevent them from
committing acts of hostility against the Spanish settlements. But
whatever may have been the conduct or orders of the government of
Spain, that of their officers in our neighborhood has been indisputably
unfriendly and hostile to us. The papers enclosed will demonstrate
this to you. That the Baron de Carondelet, their chief Governor at New
Orleans, has excited the Indians to war on us, that he has furnished
them with abundance of arms and ammunition, and promised them whatever
more shall be necessary, I have from the mouth of him who had it from
his own mouth. In short, that he is the sole source of a great and
serious war now burst out upon us, and from Indians who, we know,
were in peaceable dispositions towards us till prevailed on by him to
commence the war, there remains scarcely room to doubt.
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