In a message to the Senate, August 7, 1789, Washington had urged the importance of “some uniform and effective system for the militia of the United States,” saying that he was “particularly anxious” it should receive early attention.  On January 18, 1790, General Knox submitted to Congress a plan to which there are frequent references in Washington’s diary, showing the special interest he took in the subject.  The report laid down principles which have long since been embraced by European nations, but which have just recently been recognized by the United States.  It asserts:  “That it is the indispensable duty of every nation to establish all necessary institutions for its protection and defense; that it is a capital security to a free state for the great body of the people to possess a competent knowledge of the military art; that every man of the proper age and ability of body is firmly bound by the social compact to perform, personally, his proportion of military duty for the defense of the State; that all men of the legal military age should be armed, enrolled, and held responsible for different degrees of military service.”  In furtherance of these principles a scheme was submitted providing for military service by the citizens of the United States beginning at eighteen years of age and terminating at sixty.  The response of Congress was the Act of April 30, 1790, authorizing a military establishment “to the number of one thousand two hundred and sixteen non-commissioned officers, privates, and musicians,” with permission to the President to call State Militia into service if need be, “in protecting the inhabitants of the frontiers.”  Washington, in noting in his diary his approval of the act, observed that it was not “adequate to the exigencies of the government and the protection it is intended to afford.”

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.