After exhausting every effort in our power to obtain the
acquiescence of the Creek Nation to the treaty of the 12th of February,
I entertained for some time the hope that their assent might at least
have been given to a new treaty, by which all their lands within the
State of Georgia should have been ceded. This has also proved
impracticable, and although the excepted portion is of comparatively
small amount and importance, I have assented to its exception so far as
to place it before the Senate only from a conviction that between it and
a resort to the forcible expulsion of the Creeks from their habitations
and lands within the State of Georgia there was no middle term.
The deputation with which this treaty has been concluded consists of the
principal chiefs of the nation--able not only to negotiate but to carry
into effect the stipulations to which they have agreed. There is a
deputation also here from the small party which undertook to contract
for the whole nation at the treaty of the 12th of February, but the
number of which, according to the information collected by General
Gaines, does not exceed 400.
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