30 The Winning of the West 



opinion in the coast towns and old-settled districts, 

 were inclined to look eastward, rather than west- 

 ward. They were interested in the quarrels of the 

 Old- World nations; they were immediately con- 

 cerned in the rights of the fisheries they jealously 

 shared with England, or the trade they sought to se- 

 cure with Spain. They did not covet the Indian 

 lands. They had never heard of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains nobody had as yet, they cared as little for 

 the Missouri as for the Congo, and they thought of 

 the Pacific Slope as a savage country, only to be 

 reached by an ocean voyage longer than the voyage 

 to India. They believed that they were entitled, un- 

 der the treaty, to the country between the Allegha- 

 nies and the Great Lakes; but they were quite con- 

 tent to see the Indians remain in actual occupancy, 

 and they had no desire to spend men and money in 

 driving them out. Nevertheless, they were even 

 less disposed to proceed to extremities against their 

 own people, who in very fact were driving out the 

 Indians; and this was the only alternative, for in 

 the end they had to side with one or the other set 

 of combatants. 



The governmental authorities of the newly created 

 Republic shared these feelings. They felt no hun- 

 ger for the Indian lands ; they felt no desire to stretch 

 their boundaries and thereby add to their already 

 heavy burdens and responsibilities. They wished 

 to do strict justice to the Indians ; the treaties they 

 held with them were carried on with scrupulous fair- 

 ness and were honorably lived up to by the United 



