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Washington City, April 13th, 1838. To His Excellency Martin Van Buren, President of the United States. Sir, At the interview with which we were honoured on our arrival here some months ago, as a regularly appointed Delegation from the Cherokee nation, we were referred by your Excellency to the Secretary of War. We were then encouraged to expect that a negotiation would be forthwith opened to settle all matters between the Cherokee nation and the United States. Informal communications followed, at the express suggestion of the Secretary of War, between Mr John Mason Junr and two individuals of our Delegation, John Ross and Edward Gunter, who were told that if there should be no result from those communications, the Delegation, as a body, would still be at perfect liberty to proceed with strikeout: on our official intercourse, as though nothing had intervened. But while the individuals in question were yet waiting a reply reply from Mr Mason, to the last unofficial suggestion they had offerred, and before any official proposition whatever had been presented strikeout: to by us to the Secretary of War, subsequently to his recognition of our credentials, -- a letter was written bt Mr Harris, the Indian Commissioner, to the Government officers in the Cherokee Country, stating that all official communication between the Government and the Delegation was closed. We were certainly at a loss to understand how that could be closed, which had not as