The answer did not come for several months, and when it did come it was not very satisfactory.

The old sage repeated that he knew too little of the circumstances to express an opinion, but he urged a friendly understanding with North Carolina, and he spoke with unpalatable frankness on the subject of the Indians.

At that very time he was writing to a Cherokee chief [Footnote: _Do_.

Letter to the Chief "Cornstalk" (Corntassel ?), same date and place.] who had come to Congress in the vain hope that the Federal authorities might save the Cherokees from the reckless backwoodsmen; he had promised to try to obtain justice for the Indians, and he was in no friendly mood towards the backwoods aggressors.
Prevent encroachments on Indian lands, Franklin wrote to Sevier,--Sevier, who, in a last effort to rally his followers, was seeking a general Indian war to further these very encroachments,--and remember that they are the more unjustifiable because the Indians usually give good bargains in the way of purchase, while a war with them costs more than any possible price they may ask.

This advice was based on Franklin's usual principle of merely mercantile morality; but he was writing to a people who stood in sore need of just the teaching he could furnish and who would have done well to heed it.