from Cusseta, announcing the fact. The chief replied in a long and involved epistle, complaining of the Georgian grievances, anticipating redress, and appointing time and place for an interview. They met in April, 1787, and White forthwith demanded the acknowledgment of the boundary claimed by the Georgians. McGillivray adroitly made a counterproposition, that the United States ought first to establish a government under federal authority south of the Alabama; and promising that if they should, he would then ratify the line required, and giving the checkmated superintendent until the first of August to consider on it, he departed.

All this time the extensive trade of the Creeks was shut to the United States, and the Indians, incensed beyond measure at the greedy seizure of the Oconee lands, incessantly depredated upon the border, to the great wrath and injury of the Georgian squatters, who would fain have procured the invasion of the Creeks by a national army.

But Congress is reluctant to enter into another war; and a third time sends other commissioners to negotiate with McGillivray. The powerful and fearless chieftain now absolutely refuses to treat unless the Georgians shall first be removed from the Oconee lands, which the commissioners cannot do, and again they go bootless home; while McGillivray, personally interested in Panton's extensive trade, valued, flat

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tered, and amply supplied by the Spanish government, implicitly obeyed by the Creeks and by many of the Choctaws, Cherokees and Seminoles, and even supplicated to by the American Congress, is quite able to demand his own terms; and the indefatigable Tustenuggee and his warriors still unmercifully vex and devastate the disputed border.

The proud, bold and wary " Alabama Talleyrand" as Pickett the historian calls him, scornfully refused to trust the pledge of personal honor, upon which commissioners from Georgia next invited him to meet them; evaded repeated like attempts by Governor Pinckney of South Carolina; and kept the commissioners of the federal government long waiting and urging him to a meeting, on his frontier.

McGillivray at length agreed to meet them; and knowing well what use to make of the Spanish fears that he might come to an accommodation with them, and ever influenced primarily by the interests of his nation, he wrote to Panton an ambiguous letter containing the following triumphant and powerful passage:

"In order to accommodate us, the commissioners are complaisant enough to postpone it (the meeting) till the 15th of next month, and one of them, the late Chief Justice Osborne, remains all the time at Rock Landing. In this do you not see my cause of triumph, in bringing these conquerors of the Old, and masters of the New World, as they call themselves, to bend and supplicate for peace,

at the feet of a people whom, shortly before, they despised and marked out for destruction ?"

Leaving Panton and the Spanish authorities in considerable pain lest he should in some way put himself into the hands of the Americans, McGillivray, with two thousand warriors, met the American authorities at Rock Landing on the Oconee; and with his usual polite courtesy, so encouraged the commissioners that they considered it safe to explain the treaty they desired, which, as usual, stipulated that the boundary required by Georgia should be acknowledged; and for other concessions from the Indians. McGillivray, after the form of consulting with his chiefs, astounded the commissioners next morning by coolly refusing their terms as unjust; and in spite of their efforts he broke up his encampment and departed, writing them a curt letter of explanation, which ended as follows:

"We sincerely desire a peace, but cannot sacrifice much to obtain it. As for a statement of our disputes, the honorable Congress has long since been in possession of it, and has declared that they will decide on them, on the principles of justice and humanity. 'Tis that we expect."

The commissioners had to return in dissatisfaction. President Washington, unwilling to undertake a war, whose expense he computed at fifteen millions, resolved to attempt a personal interview with McGill

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ivray; and Col. Marinus Willet, dispatched on a secret agency to negotiate for his journey to New York, and succeeding, returned with him overland, the distinguished chief being everywhere received and treated with the utmost attention and honor.

The Spanish governor, in great alarm, sent an agent to New York to embarrass their proceedings, who however was so closely watched as to be unable to do any harm. A treaty was at last concluded, August 1790, by which McGillivray recognized the boundary line claimed by the Georgians, and stipulated to substitute for his existing relations with Spain, similar ones with the United States, for which an innual payment of fifteen hundred dollars was to be made to the nation, and their territory guaran teed to them. There was, however, a secret treaty signed by Washington, Knox, McGillivray and the chiefs with him, providing for salaries and medals to the chiefs of the negotiating tribes; and for the halfbreed ruler himself, the appointments of United States agent, and brigadier-general, with twelve hundred dollars a year.

He returns with half a year's pay in advance. The terms of the treaty being published, for the first time McGillivray begins to lose the confidence at once of his tribe, of the Spaniards, and of Panton. A freebooting adventurer, named Bowles, a man of many strange experiences, in the English interest, intrigues within

the nation against the chief, who, however, journeys about and negotiates awhile, first procures Bowles to be sent to Madrid in irons and then receives from his Catholic Majesty the appointment of superintendent-general of the Creeks, with an annual salary of two thousand dollars, soon increased to thirty-five hundred.

Thus supported by the two powerful nations whom he played against each other, and even firmer than ever in his own hereditary authority, he spent a year or two in his natural atmosphere of diplomacy and. intrigue, bamboozling the American authorities with multiplied excuses for delaying to execute the treaty of New York, and still privately maintaining his close relations with the Spaniards; seemingly with perfect ease, avoiding to commit himself into the hands of either, and skillfully and wisely supporting his home administration. He died in February, 1793, of a complication of disorders; probably chiefly of an inflammation of the lungs, and of gout in the stomach.

"General McGillivray," says Pickett, “was six feet high, spare made, and remarkably erect in person and carriage. His eyes were large, dark, and piercing. His forehead was so peculiarly shaped that the old Indian countrymen often spoke of it; it commenced expanding at his eyes, and widened considerably at the top of his head; it was a bold and lofty forehead.