War Office Aug^t 26. 1795. Sir, I received your letter informing of the treaty held at Scipio where the Commissioners of New York purchased the land of the Onondagas and Cayugas; and that you proposed to go to Oneida where you supposed that tribe might be influenced to avoid a sale. Seeing the Commissioners were acting in defiance of the law of the United States, it was certainly proper not to give them any countenance; and as that law declares such purchases of the Indians as those commissioners were attempting to make, invalid, it was also right to inform the Indians of the law and of the illegality of such purchase. But having done thus much, the business might there be left. The negotiation is probably finished ere now: if not, you may content yourself with giving the Oneidas the information above proposed, & there to leave the matter. Iam, Sir, your ob^t Servant T. Pickering M^r Israel Chapin [War-department. Pickering] M^r Israel Chapin, Superintendant of Indian Affairs Konondaiqua