But what was much more important, great numbers of the
Creeks, chiefly their young men, have yielded to these incitements,
and have now, for more than a twelvemonth, been committing murders and
desolations on our frontiers. Really desirous of living in peace with
them, we have redoubled our efforts to produce the same disposition in
them. We have borne with their aggressions, forbidden all returns of
hostility against them, tied up the hands of our people, insomuch that
few instances of retaliation have occurred even from our suffering
citizens; we have multiplied our gratifications to them, fed them when
starving from the produce of our own fields and labor. No longer ago
than the last winter, when they had no other resource against famine and
must have perished in great numbers, we carried into their country and
distributed among them, gratuitously, ten thousand bushels of corn; and
that too, at the same time, when their young men were daily committing
murders on helpless women and children, on our frontiers. And though
these depredations now involve more considerable parts of the nation, we
are still demanding punishment of the guilty individuals, and shall be
contented with it. These acts of neighborly kindness and support on our
part, have not been confined to the Creeks, though extended to them in
much the greatest degree.
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