[Footnote: Haldimand MSS.

Letter of Rainsford and Tait to Hamilton.

April 9, 1779.] The British agents among the southern Indians had received the letters Hamilton sent them after he took Vincennes; in these they were urged at once to send out parties against the frontier, and to make ready for a grand stroke in the spring.

In response the chief agent, who was the Scotch captain Cameron, a noted royalist leader, wrote to his official superior that the instant he heard of any movement of the northwestern Indians he would see that it was backed up, for the Creeks were eager for war, and the Cherokees likewise were ardently attached to the British cause; as a proof of the devotion of the latter, he added: "They keep continually killing and scalping in Virginia, North Carolina, and the frontier of Georgia, although the rebels are daily threatening to send in armies from all quarters and extirpate the whole tribe." [Footnote: Haldimand MSS.

Series B., Vol.