No matter what happened, however, there was to be neither lingering nor delay in this business.  The President set to work at once to organize a fresh army, and fight out a settlement of the troubles.  His first thought for a new commander was of Henry Lee of Virginia, but considerations of rank deterred him.  He then selected and appointed Wayne, who recently had got into politics and been deprived, on a contested election, of his seat in the House.  No little grumbling ensued over this appointment, especially in Virginia, but it was unheeded by the President, and its causes now are not very clear.  The event proved the wisdom of the choice, as so often happened with Washington, and it is easy to see the reason for it.  Wayne was one of the shining figures of our Revolution, appealing strongly to the imagination of posterity.  He was not a great general in the highest sense, but he was a brilliant corps-commander, capable of daring feats of arms like the storming of Stony Point.  He was capable also of dashing with heedless courage into desperate places, and incurring thereby defeat and consequent censure, but escaping entire ruin through the same quickness of action which had involved him in trouble.  He was well fitted for the bold and rapid movement required in Indian warfare, and with him Washington put well-chosen subordinates, selected evidently for their fighting capacity, for he clearly was determined that this should be at all events a fighting campaign.

Wayne, after his appointment, betook himself to Pittsburg, and proceeded with characteristic energy to raise and organize his army, a work of no little difficulty because he wished to have picked men.  Washington did all that could be done to help him, and at the same time pushed negotiations with admirable patience, but with very varying success.  Kirkland brought chiefs of the Six Nations to Congress with good results, and the Cherokees were pacified by additional presents.  On the other hand, the Creeks were restless, stirred up always by Spain, and two brave officers, sent to try for peace with the western tribes, were murdered in cold blood.  Nevertheless, treaties were patched up with some of them, and a great council was held in the fall of 1792, the Six Nations acting as mediators, which resulted in a badly kept armistice, but in nothing of lasting value.  The next year Congress passed a general act regulating trade and intercourse with the Indians, and Washington appointed yet another commission to visit the northwestern tribes, more to satisfy public opinion than with any hope of peace.  Indeed, these commissioners never succeeded in even meeting the Indians, who rejected in advance all proposals which would not concede the Ohio as the boundary.  English influence, it was said, was at the bottom of this demand, and there seems to be little doubt that such was the case, for England and France were now at war, and England thereupon had redoubled her efforts to injure the United States by every sort of petty