caught the alarm, thought himself the only person left to fight, and got off on the same route as speedily as possible, until, luckily for all, the meeting of the roads on the general retreat, the difficulty of the way, the straying of horses, and sometimes the halting to drink whiskey, put a stop to “the hurly-burly of the flight” and reminded the fugitives that by this time they were in sufficient force to rally; and then they would return “to explore the plundered country and to bury the unfortunate scalped heads in the fag-end of the retreat”; whereas if there had been an appointed rendezvous where all could rally it would have prevented such a flight from what might possibly have been a body of Indians far inferior in numbers to the armed men of the settlements attacked. [Footnote:  Knoxville Gazette, April 6, 1793.]

    The Frontiersmen Ask Permission to Retaliate.

The convention of Mero district early petitioned Congress for the right to retaliate on the Indians and to follow them to their towns, stating that they had refrained from doing so hitherto not from cowardice, but only from regard to Government, and that they regretted that their “rulers” (the Federal authorities at Philadelphia) did not enter into their feelings or seem to sympathize with them. [Footnote:  Knoxville Gazette, August 13, 1792.] When the Territorial Legislature met in 1794 it petitioned Congress for war against the Creeks and Cherokees, reciting the numerous outrages committed by them upon the whites; stating that since 1792 the frontiersmen had been huddled together two or three hundred to the station, anxiously expecting peace, or a legally authorized war from which they would soon wring peace; and adding that they were afraid of war in no shape, but that they asked that their hands be unbound and they be allowed to defend themselves in the only possible manner, by offensive war.  They went on to say that, as members of the Nation, they heartily approved of the hostilities which were then being carried on against the Algerines for the protection of the seafaring men of the coast-towns, and concluded:  “The citizens who live in poverty on the extreme frontier are as much entitled to be protected in their lives, their families, and their little properties, as those who roll in luxury, ease, and affluence in the great and opulent Atlantic cities,”—­for in frontier eyes the little seaboard trading-towns assumed a rather comical aspect of magnificence.  The address was on the whole dignified in tone, and it undoubtedly set forth both the wrong and the remedy with entire accuracy.  The Tennesseeans felt bitterly that the Federal Government did everything for Kentucky and nothing for themselves, and they were rather inclined to sneer at the difficulty experienced by the Kentuckians and the Federal army in subduing the Northwestern Indians, while they themselves were left single-handed to contend with the more numerous tribes of the South.  They were also inclined to laugh at the continual complaints the Georgians made over the comparatively trivial wrongs they suffered from the Indians, and at their inability either to control their own people or to make war effectively. [Footnote:  Knoxville Gazette, Feb. 26, 1794, March 27, 1794, etc., etc.]