"On former occasions we have in much detail laid before you the prominent facts of our case. We have reminded you of our long and intimate connexion with the United States; of the scenes of peril and difficulty which we have shared in common; of the friendship which had so long been generously proffered and affectionately and gratefully accepted; of the aids which were supplied us in promoting our advancement in the arts of civilized life; of the political principles which we had imbibed of the religious faith we have been taught.

"We have called your attention to the progress which, under your auspices, we have made; to the improvements which have marked our social and individual state; our lands brought into cultivation; our natural resources developed; our farms, workshops, and factories, approximating in character and value to those of our brethren whose example we had diligently imitated.

"A smooth and beautiful prospect of future advancement was open before us. Our people had abandoned the pursuits, the habits, and the tastes of the savage, and had put on the vestments of civilization, of intelligence, and of a pure religion. The progress we had made furnished us with the most assured hopes of continued improvement, and we indulged in the anticipation, that the time was not far distant when we should be recognised on the footing of equality by the brethren from whom we had received all which we were now taught to prize.

"This promise of a golden sunshine is now overspread. Clouds and darkness have obscured its brilliancy. The winds are beginning to mutter their awful forebodings; the tempest is gathering thick and heavy over our heads, and threatens to burst upon us with terrific energy and overwhelming ruin.

"In this season of calamity, where can we turn with hope or confidence? On all former occasions of peril or of doubt, the government of the United States spread over us its broad and paternal shield. It invited us to seek an asylum and a protection under its mighty arm. assisted us with its encouragement and advice; it soothed us with its consoling assurances; it inspired us with hope, and gave us a feeling of confidence and security.

"But, alas! this, our long-cherished friend, seems now to be alienated from us this, our father, has raised his arm to inflict the hostile blow: this strength, so long our protection, is now exerted against us, and on the wide scene of existence no human aid is left us. Unless you avert your arm, we are destroyed. Unless your feelings of affection and compassion are once more awakened towards your destitute and despairing children, our annihilation is complete.

"It is a natural inquiry, among all who commiserate our situation,

what are the causes which have led to this disastrous revolution,-to this entire change of relations? By what agency have such results been accomplished?

"We have asked, and we reiterate the question, how have we offended? Show us in what manner we have, however unwittingly, inflicted upon you a wrong; you shall yourselves be the judges of the extent and manner of compensation. Show us the offence which has awakened your feelings of justice against us, and we will submit to that measure of punishment which you shall tell us we have merited. We cannot bring to our recollections anything we have done, or anything we have omitted, calculated to awaken your resentment against us.

"But we are told that a treaty has been made, and all that is required at our hands is to comply with its stipulations. Will the faithful historian, who shall hereafter record our lamentable fate, say the Cherokee nation executed a treaty by which they freely and absolutely ceded the country in which they were born and educated,―the property they had been industriously accumulating and improving, and abandoning the high road by which they had been advancing from savageism, had precipitated themselves into worse than their pristine degradation ? Will not the reader of such a narrative require the most ample proof before he will credit such a story? Will he not inquire where was the kind and parental guardian who had heretofore aided the weak, assisted the forlorn, instructed the ignorant, and elevated the depressed? Where was the government of the United States, with its vigilant care over the Indian, when such a bargain was made? How will he be surprised at hearing that the United States was a party to the transaction-that the authorities of that government, and the representives of that people, which had for years been employed in leading the Cherokee from ignorance to light, from barbarism to civilization, from paganism to Christianity,who had taught them new habits and new hopes,—was the very party which was about to appropriate to itself the fruits of the Indian's industry, the birth-places of his children, and the graves of his ancestors!

"If such a recital could command credence, must it not be on the ground that experience had shown the utter failure of all the efforts, and the disappointment of all the hopes of the philanthropist and the Christian?-That the natives of this favoured spot of God's creation were incapable of improvement, and unsusceptible of education,-and that they, in wilful blindness, spurning the blessings which had been proffered and urged upon them, would pertinaciously prefer the degradation from which it had been attempted to lead them, and the barbarism from which it had been sought to elevate them?

"How will his astonishment be augmented when he learns that the Cherokee people almost to a man denied the existence and the obliga

M

tion of the alleged compact-that they proclaimed it to have been based in fraud and concocted in perfidy—that no authority was ever given to those who undertook in their names and on their behalf to negotiate it; -that it was repudiated with unexampled unanimity when it was brought to their knowledge;-that they denied that it conferred any rights or imposed any obligation!

"Yet such must be the story which the faithful historian must record. In the name of the whole Cherokee nation we protest against this unhallowed and unauthorised and unacknowledged compact. We deny its binding force. We recognise none of its stipulations. If, contrary to every principle of justice, it is to be enforced upon us, we shall at least be free from the disgrace of self-humiliation. We hold the solemn disavowal of its provisions by eighteen thousand of our people."

From the Philadelphia Herald and Sentinel.)

"THE CHEROKEES.-We had intended publishing, this morning, some extracts from the memorial of John Ross and other chiefs of the Cherokees, to Congress, remonstrating against the enforcement of what purports to be a treaty between the United States and the Cherokee nation, but which was never entered into by that nation, or by any individuals authorised to act for them; we are unable, however, to find room for them.

"We are extremely anxious to draw the attention of our community to the subject of this pretended treaty, and that they should become acquainted with the circumstances under, and the means by, which it was obtained, as well as the gross injustice of the government in insisting upon carrying it into execution; for we look upon this as a matter deeply affecting our national character, and, of course, a subject in which every citizen of the Union is concerned.

"It would doubtless be a matter of surprise to our citizens, were they informed that a treaty had been entered into between Great Britain and certain individuals, citizens of Pennsylvania, but obscure and unknown to their fellow-citizens, which ceded the whole state to that power, and stipulated that every citizen should abandon it within a given period— say two years and a half, at the expiration of which, the whole should be quietly and peaceably given up; and that, in accordance with the terms of that treaty, Great Britain demanded their removal, and threatened, if they did not abandon their houses, farms, work-shops, and everything they possessed, and give her the quiet and entire possession of the state, to drive them off at the point of the bayonet, and take forcible possession!-We say that were our citizens informed of the existence of such a treaty, formed by such men, and containing such stipulations, it would strike them with the most profound astonishment,

and they would of course declare the treaty to be not only illegal, but a perfect absurdity, and would sooner die than yield to the demand made under it. Will they not also be surprised and indignant, when they learn that this is a parallel case with that which the Cherokees are imploring the interference of Congress in? Yes: precisely such a treaty was fraudulently, we believe, obtained by the special agent, the Rev. Mr. Schemerborn, with a few Cherokees, whom he invited to a feast, (while the chiefs were at Washington, whither they had repaired for the purpose of arranging the affairs of their nation with our government,) and who were induced to put their marks to a paper with the contents of which they were probably unacquainted. But whether they knew what the paper was which they signed or not, is not material-for they had no more authority to act for the nation than any fifty loafers we might pick up in our streets would have to make a treaty with Great Britain which should bind the United States.

"The treaty thus fraudulently-obtained fraudulently, because the Rev. agent well knew that those who signed it had no authority to act in the matter-was immediately forwarded to the President, laid before the senate, and by them ratified, notwithstanding the remonstrances of nearly the whole Cherokee nation. And this is the treaty which the President insists upon enforcing, and which conveys the whole territory occupied by the nation to the United States. If it be enforced, it will stamp our national character with infamy and disgrace, deep and indelible."

The following are from other papers :

"THE CHEROKEES.-Bloody preparations are in progress to enforce the fraudulent treaty upon the Cherokees, by which they are ejected from their cultivated lands in Georgia, to be driven off like cattle to the western wilderness. We trust that this enlightened tribe will submit peaceably to the outrageous tyranny of our government-but at the same time we should honour them more as freemen and warriors, if they withstood the villanous oppression, of which they are victims, till the soil of their ancestors is red with their last life-drops."

"Letter from John Ross, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, to a gentleman of Philadelphia."

"A pamphlet of forty pages, bearing the above title, has within a few days past been published in this city. In the language of the gentleman to whom it was addressed, a mild and placable man, yet keenly sensitive to national dishonour and national injustice, it is a comprehensive survey of the Cherokee question, and unfolds, in cool language, a course of conduct which makes the patriotic cheek burn with shame, and the patriotic heart glow with indignation.' We confess that, while reading

its plain, unvarnished statements of wrongs inflicted and injuries borne we felt our face tingle with shame, and could scarcely resist the impulse to brand our government, and all those agents who have had any hand in the base transactions related in this pamphlet, as knaves and robbers. Candidly and sincerely, we do not believe that since the partition of Poland by the tyrant monarchs of Russia and Austria, there has been exhibited by any civilized nation more fraud, perfidy, injustice, and oppression, than have characterized the conduct of the government of the United States towards the Cherokees, since the close of Mr. Adams' administration.

“Treaties, solemnly ratified, have been disregarded, and their stipulations violated. A helpless people who, trusting in the honour, justice, and good faith of the United States, had placed themselves under her shield, stipulating and paying for her protecting care, have been exposed to the lawless violence of rapacious hordes, who regard no right but the right of the strongest, and who looked upon Indians, though much further advanced in civilization than themselves, and exhibiting, in a tenfold greater degree, the attributes of humanity and refinement, as nothing more than wild animals to be hunted down, driven off, or shot at like bears or wolves. And when the protection of the government has been implored with tears and groans, it has, with the most admirable and stoic coldness and indifference, replied that it had no power to protect, and if oppressed, they must abandon their country, their farms, their houses, their homes, and the graves of their ancestors, and go into a far off wilderness! Admirable justice! sublime sympathy!

"Yes, even a government officer, General Wool, sent out nominally to protect the Cherokees, though in fact to oppress them to such a degree as to compel them to remove and give up their lands, said in an address to them, dated 22d March, 1837:-'Why not abandon a country no longer yours? Do you not see the white people daily coming into it, driving you from your homes, and possessing your houses, your cornfields and your farms ?" Again, in the same address, threatening them, he says-Your fate is decided, and if you do not voluntarily get ready and go by the time fixed in the treaty, [a treaty made by fraud with a few Cherokees, never authorised to act for the nation-which fact was known to the Government at the time]-you will then be forced from this country by the soldiers of the United States.' * * 'You will in vain flee to your mountains for protection. Like the Creeks you will be hunted up and dragged from your lurking places, and hurried to the west.' And this is the language of the government of the United States to a people who had placed themselves under the protection of that Government, which on its part had solemnly stipulated to protect them, and had also guaranteed to them the undisturbed, quiet, and peaceable