You pretended that it had produced a great “ferment” among the Indians; and that even many of the Chickasaws had in consequence of it, left the service.  It had produced no ferment, and none of the Chickasaws had left us.  On the contrary, the Indians were quieted by it, the Creeks re-organized, in numbers, two regiments, and the Chickasaws five companies.  That was its purpose, and such was its effect.

But to you, its enormity consisted in its exposure of the conduct of two Major Generals.  I told the Indians plainly, that it was not my fault or the fault of the Government, but of these two Generals, that moneys, clothing, arms and ammunition, procured for them, had not reached them; that troops raised for service among them had never entered their country; and that, finally, troops, artillery and ammunition were carried out of it.  This censure of my superiors, in vindication of the President and Government, shocked your tender sensibilities.  You were ready to follow in their footsteps, and already had the plunder; and you told me that “the act of the officer was the act of the Government.”  Did you really mean, that the Indians should have been led or left to suppose that these acts were the acts of the Government?  That would have been almost as great an infamy, as it was to take the supplies, and so give them cause and reason to believe the robbery the act of the Government, and thus excite them to revolt.  Moreover, when I told you that the act of

the officer was not, in the case in question, the act of the Government; that, if I had permitted the Indians to suppose so, they would long have left us; and that, to quiet them, I had been compelled, for three months and more than a hundred times, to explain to them what had become of their supplies, and how and by whom they have been seized, you admitted that “that was right for local explanation.”  As there could be no objection to telling all, what I had often told part, that they might tell the rest; and as it was no more a crime to print than to say it; I have the right to believe and I do believe that your real objection to its publication was that it exposed to our own people the actual conduct of other Generals, and the intended conduct of yourself.  Have you left the Indians to believe that the late seizure and appropriation, by yourself, of their clothing and moneys, is the act of the Government?  If you have, you ought to be shot as a Traitor, for provoking them to revolt, and giving aid and comfort to the enemy.