All that could be done, he said, was to extend the laws over each locality as rapidly as it was settled by the intruding pioneers; otherwise they would become utterly lawless, and dangerous to their neighbors.

As for laws and proclamations to restrain the white advance, he asked if all the settlements in America had not been extended in defiance of such.

And now that the Indians were cowed, the advance was certain to be faster, and the savages were certain to be pushed back more rapidly, and the limits of tribal territory more narrowly circumscribed.

[Footnote: Ramsey, 350.] This letter possessed at least the merit of expressing with blunt truthfulness the real attitude of the Franklin people, and of the backwoodsmen generally, towards the Indians.

They never swerved from their intention of seizing the Indian lands.