It was my fortune to be in New Orleans when the old chief and his little band arrived at that place.  It was winter, and the day of their debarkation was cold and rainy.  The steamer chartered to take them to Fort Smith, upon the Arkansas, from some cause did not arrive at the levee at the time appointed for their leaving, and they, with their women and children, were exposed upon the levee to all the inclemencies of rain and cold, through a protracted winter night.  Many propositions were made to give them shelter, which were rejected.  One warm-hearted, noble spirit, James D. Fresett, the proprietor of an extensive cotton-press, went in person to the aged chief, and implored him to take his people to shelter there.  He declined, and when the importunity was again pressed upon him, impatient of persuasion, he turned abruptly to his tormentor and sternly said: 

“I am the enemy of the white man.  I ask, and will accept, nothing at his hands.  Me and my people are children of the woods.  The Great Spirit gave them to us, and He gave us the power to endure the cold and the rain.  The clouds above are His, and they are shelter and warmth enough for us.  He will not deceive and rob us.  The white man is faithless; with two tongues he speaks:  like the snake, he shows these before he bites.  Never again shall the white man’s house open for me, or the white man’s roof shelter me.  I have lived his enemy, and his enemy I will die.”  The grunt of approval came from all the tribe, while many rough and stalwart men stood in mute admiration of the pride, the spirit, and the determination of this white-haired patriarch of a perishing people.  The next day he went away to his new home, but only to die.  About this time a delegation from both the Tuscahatchees or Hopothlayohola band and the McIntosh band met by private arrangement, in New Orleans, to reconcile all previous difficulties between these parties.  Hopothlayohola and Tuskega, or Jim’s Boy, and Chillie McIntosh and Hawkins, constituted the delegations.  I was present at the City Hotel, and witnessed the meeting.  It was in silence.  McIntosh and Hopothlayohola advanced with the right hand extended and met.  The clasping hands was the signal for the others:  they met, clasping hands, and unity was restored, the nations reconciled and reunited, and Hopothlayohola and his people invited to come in peace to their new homes.

It was evidently a union of policy, as there could be no heart-union between McIntosh and Hopothlayohola; and though the latter placed his conduct upon the broad basis of national law and national justice, yet this was inflicted upon the parent of the other, who denied the law, or the power under the law, supposing it to exist, of the other to adjudge and to execute its sentence.  In the meeting of these chiefs, and their apparent reconciliation, was to be seen, a desire that the nation should reunite, and that there should be amity between the bands, or divided