Louisiana and Aaron Burr 187 



provocation, attacked a trading store kept by his 

 own brother, and killed the two men who were man- 

 aging it. 67 Most of the Creeks, however, professed, 

 and doubtless felt, regret at these outrages, and 

 Seagrove continued to represent their conduct in a 

 favorable light to the Central Government, though 

 he was forced to admit that certain of the towns 

 were undoubtedly hostile and could not be controlled 

 by the party which was for peace. 



Blount was much put out at the fact that Sea- 

 grove was believed at Philadelphia when he reported 

 the Creeks to be at peace. In a letter to Seagrove, 

 at the beginning of 1794, Blount told him sharply 

 that as far as the Cumberland district was concerned 

 the Creeks had been the only ones to blame since 

 the treaty of New York, for they had killed or en- 

 slaved over two hundred whites, attacking them in 

 their houses, fields, or on the public roads, and had 

 driven off over a thousand horses, while the Ameri- 

 cans had done the Creeks no injuries whatever ex- 

 cept in defence of their homes and lives, or in pur- 

 suing war parties. It was possible of course that 

 occasionally an innocent hunter suffered with the 

 guilty marauders, but this was because he was off 

 his own hunting grounds; and the treaty explicitly 

 showed that the Creeks had no claim to the Cumber- 

 land region, while there was not a particle of truth 

 in their assertion that since the treaty had been en- 

 tered into there had been intrusion on their hunting 



61 American State Papers, Seagrove to James Holmes, Feb. 

 24, 1793 ; to Mr, Payne, April 14, 1793. 



