270 The Winning of the West 



press an opinion but he urged a friendly under 

 standing with North Carolina, and he spoke with 

 unpalatable frankness on the subject of the In 

 dians. At that very time he was writing to a Chero 

 kee chief 20 who had come to Congress in the vain 

 hope that the Federal authorities might save the 

 Cherokees from the reckless backwoodsmen; he had 

 promised to try to obtain justice for the Indians, 

 and he was in no friendly mood toward the back 

 woods aggressors. 



Prevent encroachments on Indian lands, Franklin 

 wrote to Sevier, Sevier, who, in a last effort to 

 rally his followers, was seeking a general Indian 

 war to further these very encroachments, and re 

 member that they are the more unjustifiable because 

 the Indians usually give good bargains in the way 

 of purchase, while a war with them costs more than 

 any possible price they may ask. This advice was 

 based on Franklin's usual principle of merely mer 

 cantile morality ; but he was writing to a people who 

 stood in sore need of just the teaching he could 

 furnish and who would have done well to heed it. 

 They were slow to learn that while sober, debt- 

 paying thrift, love of order, and industry, are per 

 haps not the loftiest virtues and are certainly not 

 in themselves all sufficient, they yet form an indis 

 pensable foundation, the lack of which is but ill sup 

 plied by other qualities even of a very noble kind. 



Sevier, also in the year 1787, carried on a long 



40 Do. Letter to the Chief "Cornstalk" (Corntassel?), same 

 date and place. 



