No 2

Letter to Secretary at

War

22 Aug.^t 1797

Post

Recorded Knoxville 22 August 1797

Sir

The Commissioners will shortly finish running The boundary line, And in consequence of & a great number of respectable families ^inhabitants have the misfortune to be left on ^within the indian Claim, Many of Which very been contrary to expectations. - it has Generally supposed could have who have been peaceably settled on their plantations, a considerable length of time and had been within the limits to which the indian claim had been extinguished just right to expect from the laws of North Carolina passed in their favor, they would never be Molisted, -

It is a melancholy circumstance, to reflect on this Distress as a great number of these people must [undecipherable] be subjected to Should they be expected to abandon [undecipherable] especially in so short a period - The severity of the Winter & Great drought of the [undecipherable] Will have the Most fatal tendency by bringing on perhaps the Greatest Scarcity of provisions that has ever been experianced in this & several of the adjacent States

I am aware Sir, of the Great Necessity of Supporting the [undecipherable] the Union, together with the death are a [undecipherable] ^{[bergidance?]} United, and if I know my self seem with concern say, that no person on earth wish its prosperity [undecipherable], But permit me to suggest, that Humanity loudly will for my interpenance now behalf these people, their situation is deplorable, and I fear their [undecipherable] will be ^{almost all end do with} a calamity – I therefore ncest considerably ^seriously select an ^some indulgence in their halfs and hope Sir [undecipherable] Will exctend such to hims. It will [undecipherable] their ^present [undecipherable]. The lands they inhabit is of little ^{or no} use to the Natives, And I am [undecipherable] they will there Claim could be [undecipherable] ^very [undecipherable] terms, ^and I am encouraged to hope that [undecipherable] will not think it improper to make the [undecipherable] few of the letters in [undecipherable], but having [undecipherable] able, and have contributed very much to agreeably to their members, very much towards the inde-pendancy of the United States, and are at this

time

time warm ^{& jealous} friends to the General Government and [undecipherable] ^{and bring} fully acquainted and satisfied ^with these circumstances I am the more felicitous in their favor, and pray that you will take under your national considerations their deplorable condition, in doing of which you will our only [undecipherable] to the people in question, but very much oblige [undecipherable] at large, who feel an interest in behalf of how people who are [undecipherable] to suffer and ^will very much attract ^it them to the government & the Executive and [undecipherable] Repeat [undecipherable] I have the honor to be [undecipherable] [undecipherable]

Signed,

John Sevier

Secretary of War