.MTA1OA.NzEzMTg

His Excellency Gov. Carroll, and Rev. I.L. Schermerhorn U.S. Commissioners now at the Cherokee agency. Red Clay l.n. July 30, 1835. gentlemen, your communication of yesterday's date in reply to my letter of the 24th __? to Mr. Schermerhorn, has just been handed in by Mr Foreman. You request me to inform you by the Bearer whether it is my determination & that of the Principal men, not to meet the commissioners at the place & time according to their request & appointment. There has been no request, or previous notice of any appointment made by the commissioners for us to meet them at the agency, until the verbal suggestion was made by Mr Schermerhorn, as has been stated. In my letters of the 24th inst. to gov: Carroll & to Mr. Schermerhorn, have fully stated the causes which made it impossible for us to have attended at the agency on yesterday, and it was with the utmost sincerity that I assured Mr Schermerhorn that it would have given the chiefs & the representatives of the Cherokee people pleasure, had it been practicable for them to have met and taken their old friend & brother soldier his Excellency gov. Carroll by the right hand of friendship. And I beg leave now to state distinctly in reply to your interrogation that I have not come to the determination not to meet the commissioners at the agency; but on the contrary, I am disposed cheerfully to meet them at any proper time when circumstances will allow, after being duly notified by them jointly not do so; and I am fully persuaded such also are the feelings of the other principal men on the subject; but of impossibilities I have no control. As to the enquiry you have though proper on this occasion to make of me concerning the letter addressed by the Cherokee Delegation to the Hon: Secretary of war on the 28th of