State of Tennessee, Knoxville 6th June 1797. Sir: A few days past I was favoured with your duplicate of the 20th of April, tho as yet the original is not come to hand. The conduct of the executive of this state has uniformly manifested his intention to preserve the peace of the frontiers by all the means in his station, and the laws had put in his power. The very great and essential advantages and benefits accruing from such a situation of affairs, requires no great share of sagacity to discover the propriety of such an arrangement and measure; and should every other executive department he as pacificly disposed, I should not entertain a doubt but peace and tranquility would abound throughout the United States. I acknowledge that the chiefs of the Cherokee nation have discovered an entire disposition for peace for some time, not from any good-will for the people of the United States, for it is well known they never entertain any towards them, therefore from such a principle their pacific conduct have not arisen. When I say they have not any good will for the people, I speak from experimental knowledge of forty years. When the French attacked Americs, when under the Brittish government, the Indian tribes generally joined the former, and America felt the weight of their savage ferocity; again when America was invaded by the Brittish, they uniformly turned round in opposition to the Americans and French. From such a line of conduct, the information obtained from history, I am not induced to believe they ever had, or will have any good will towards us; and I have good reasons to believe their pacific disposition proceeds from another source. You are pleased to mention that accounts arrived that two of the Cherokees have been cruelly murdered, and whether the intention of the act was to disturb the peace, to create difficul- ties to the removal of the settlers, or to obstruct the operation of the Government on the frontiers, was not then necessary to be examined. If the same person who give you the information of the murder being committed have given himself the trouble to have stated to you that one of those Indians had actually been at the murdering of a brother of one of the two men, who it is supposed killed the Indians referred to, and also some of the same party at the murder of the mother, two sisters and sister-in-law of the other, you might probably have accounted for it and suggested the reason. I say murdering of those white persons, because it was perpetrated in the time of profound peace. This outrage committed on the two Indians was by two hunters who were in the company with them, hunting in a remote part of the state of Kentucky. And when an account of its having been done was communicated to me by the executive of that state that there was just reasons to believe it was done by persons living in this; my orders was immediately issued for apprehending and securing the persons suspected, with directions to be safely conveyed to the state of Kentucky to be tried by the laws they had offended and transgressed against. The transgressors immediately fled and left the state, well knowing they could find no shelter in it; and I am determined they shall be dealt with as the laws direct, if they can be taken. If not, I am resolved they shall not be suffered to reside in any part of the state of Tennessee. I am not fond of forwarding complaints against the Cherokee nation, on account of some murders and thefts committed by some lawless fellows of that tribe, conceiving it would be as difficult for the chiefs to prevent those disorders in every instance, as it would be for the rules in Philadelphia to restrain murders and robberies often committed within that and other neighboring cities. Having good reasons to believe few repre- sentations go forward of the brutal and savage conduct of the Indians, I beg leave to inform you, that several very cruel and barbarous murders have been committed on several of the peaceable citizens of this state by the Cherokees and Creeks, also a great number of horses stolen by those nations in the course of autumn and winter last, retaining in captivity a number of white persons, negros and other property, in violation of the treaties and solemn promises made to the contrary. It is an unpleasant reflection to behold as it were our dearest and nearest relatives in the hands of savages, sold and bartered from Indian to Indian, and from nation to nation, in order to glut and satisfy the ambition of savage cruelty; for to remedy these enumerated and aggrevated grievances, I trust and confidently rely that decisive steps will be taken. Justice and policy require it, and if neglected will be a reproach to the government of the United States. I am, etc., (Signed) John Sevier. Honorable James McHenry, Secretary of War.