War Office July 16, 1795 Sir I have received your letter of the 13th inst. in answer to mine of the 3d, relative to the proposed negotiation, by Commissioners of the State of New York, to purchase the lands of the Onondagas & other Indian Tribes. I would not trouble your Excellency with another letter but to correct a mistake into which I was led by the information of M^r T. Morris, a member of your legislature. He told me that the act authorizing the purchase of those Indian lands directed an application to the General Government for a treaty to be held. I have not seen the act itself. Your account of it convinces me of the mistake above mentioned. I cannot account for M^r Morris's conception of it, but by supposing that a motion to amend the act, in correspondence with the information he gave me, might have taken such a course in the legislature, while he was present, as to induce a belief that the motion [undecipherable] [undecipherable] [undecipherable]. I am sure he would have no disposition to misrepresent. And it is to avoid any imputation on myself, that I have given this detail: because in my letter to M^r Chapin, I have repeated M^r Morris's information, at the same time manifesting my surprize that any gentleman should attempt the negotiation in opposition not only to an act of the General Government but of his own State legislature. With very great respect I am Sir, your ob^t Servant Timothy Pickering His Excellency John Jay Esq^r Governor of New York.