Cultivating peace in the face of unequivocal war

[Below is my letter to William Carmichael and William Short dated May 31, 1793, regarding Native Americans.]

With respect to the treaties, the speech and the letter, you will see that they undertake to espouse the concerns of Indians within our limits; to be mediators of boundary between them and us; to guarantee that boundary to them; to support them with their whole power; and hazard to us intimations of acquiescence to avoid disagreeable results.

They even propose to extend their intermeddlings to the northern Indians. These are pretensions so totally inconsistent with the usages established among the white nations, with respect to Indians living within their several limits, that it is believed no example of them can be produced, in times of peace; and they are presented to us in a manner which we cannot deem friendly.

The consequence is, that the Indians, and particularly the Creeks, finding themselves so encouraged, have passed, without the least provocation on our part, from a state of peace, which appeared to be well settled, to that of serious hostility. Their murders and depredations, which, for some months, we were willing to hope were only individual aggressions, now assume the appearance of unequivocal war.

Yet such is our desire of courting and cultivating the peace of all our Indian neighbors, that instead of marching at once into their country and taking satisfaction ourselves, we are peaceably requiring punishment of the individual aggressors; and, in the meantime, are holding ourselves entirely on the defensive.

But this state of things cannot continue. Our citizens are entitled to effectual protection, and defensive measures are, at the same time, the most expensive and least effectual. If we find then, that peace cannot be obtained by the temperate means we are still pursuing, we must proceed to those which are extreme, and meet all the consequences, of whatever nature, or from whatever quarter they may be.