1736.[3] In their printed report they lay down these fundamental principles.  “The Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, and Catawba Indians, at the time of the discovery of this part of America, were the inhabitants of the lands which they now possess, and have ever since been deemed and esteemed the friends and allies of his Majesty’s English subjects in this part of the Continent.  They have been treated with as allies, but not as subjects of the crown of Great Britain; they have maintained their own possessions, and preserved their independency; nor does it appear that they have by conquest lost, nor by cession, compact, or otherwise, yielded up or parted with, those rights to which, by the laws of nature and nations, they were and are entitled.”

[Footnote 1:  McCALL, Vol.  I. p. 46.]

[Footnote 2:  Capt.  FREDERICK McKAY, in a letter to THOMAS BROUGHTON, Esq., Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina, dated July 12,1735, written to justify his conduct as Indian Commissary, in turning out four traders who would not conform to the rules stipulated in the licenses, has the following remarks on the difficulties which he had to encounter:  “It was impracticable to get the traders to observe their instructions, while some did undersell the others; some used light, others heavy weights; some bribed the Indians to lay out their skins with them, others told the Indians that their neighboring traders had heavy weights, and stole their skins from them, but that they themselves had light weights, and that their goods were better.”]

[Footnote 3:  “Report of the Committee appointed to examine into the proceedings of the people of Georgia, with respect to the Province of South Carolina, and the disputes subsisting between the two Colonies.” 4to.  Charlestown, 1736, p. 121.

This tract was printed by Lewis Timothy.  There was no printer in Carolina before 1730, and this appears to have been one of the earliest productions of the Charlestown press, in the form of a book.  RICH’s Bibliotheca Americana Nova, p. 53.]

“The Committee cannot conceive that a charter from the crown of Great Britain can give the grantees a right or power over a people, who, to our knowledge, have never owned any allegiance, or acknowledged the sovereignty of the crown of Great Britain, or any Prince in Europe; but have indiscriminately visited and traded with the French, Spaniards, and English, as they judged it most for their advantage; and it is as difficult to understand how the laws of Great Britain, or of any Colony in America, can take place, or be put in execution in a country where the people never accepted of, nor submitted to, such laws; but have always maintained their freedom, and have adhered to their own customs and manners without variation or change.”