.ODkx.NTU5ODg
6 every year deliver you a large quantity of such goods as are best suited to the wants of yourselves, your women & Children.- "Brothers - If all the lands before mentioned cannot be yielded up to the U. S., then we shall desire to treat & agree with you on a new boundary line; & for the quantity of land you relinquish to us within that new boundary line, we shall stipulate a generous compensation; not only for a largesum to be paid at once, but for a yearly rent for the benefit of yourselves & your Children forever. "Brothers - Here you see one concession that we are willing to make on the part of the U. S. now listen to another, of a claim which has probably more disturbed your minds than any other whatever. "Brothers - The Commissioners of the U. S. have formerly set up a claim to your whole Country Southward of the Great Lakes, as the property of the U. S.: grounding this claim on the treaty of peace with your father the King of G. B., who declared as we have before mentioned, the middle of those Lakes & the waters which unite them to be the boundaries of the U. S.- "Brothers - We are determined that our whole conduct shall be marked with openness & sincerity. We there fore frankly tell you, that we think those Commissioners put an erroneous construction on that part of our treaty with the King. As he had not purchased the Country of you, of course he could not give it away. He only relinquished to the U. S. his claim to it. That claim was founded on a right acquired by treaty with other white nations, to exclude them from purchasing or settling in any part of your Country: & it is this right which the King granted to the U. S. - Before that grant the King alone had a right to purchase of the Indian Nations any of the lands between the Great Lakes, the Ohio & the Mississipi, excepting the part within the charter boundary of Pennsylvania; & the King by the treaty of peace, having granted this right to the U. S., they alone have now the right of purchasing. So that now, neither the King nor any of his people, have any right to interfere with the U. S. in respect to any pat of those lands. All your Brothers the English, know this to be true: & it agrees with the declaration of Lord Dorchester to your Deputies two years ago at Quebec.- "Brothers - We now concede this great point. We by the express authority of the President of the U. S. acknowledge the property or right of Soil, of the great Country above described to be in the Indian Nations, so long as they desire to occupy the same. We only claim particular tracts in it, as before mentioned & the general right granted by the King, as above stated, & which is well known to the English and Americans, & called the right of pre-emption, or the right or purchasing of the Indian Nations, disposed to sell their lands, to the exclusion of of all other white people whatever.- "Brothers - We have now opened our hearts to you. We are happy in having an opportunity of doing it: tho' we should have been more happy to have done it in the full Council of your Nations. We expect soon to have this satisfaction; & that your next deputation will take us by the hand & lead us to the Treaty when we meet & converse with each other freely we may more easily remove any difficulties which may come in the way of peace."
At Capt. Elliots at the mouth of Detroit river- 31st July 1793.
(signed) B. L. /
B. R. / Commissioners
T. P. / of the U. S.
---------------------------------------------
August 1st 1793. In Council, present as Yesterday-