[Footnote: _Do_., Martin to Knox, August 23, 1788.] Sevier led parties against the Indians without ceasing; and he and his men by their conduct showed that they waged the war very largely for profit.

On a second incursion, which he made with canoes, into the Hiawassee country, his followers made numerous tomahawk claims, or "improvements," as they were termed, in the lands from which the Indians fled; hoping thus to establish a right of ownership to the country they had overrun.

[Footnote: _Do_., Hutchings to Martin, July 11, 1788.] The whites speedily got the upper hand, ceasing to stand on the defensive; and the panic disappeared.

When the North Carolina Legislature met, the members, and the people of the seaboard generally, were rather surprised to find that the over-hill men talked of the Indian war as troublesome rather than formidable.

[Footnote: _Columbian Magazine,_ ii., 472.] The militia officers holding commissions from North Carolina wished Martin to take command of the retaliatory expeditious against the Cherokees; but Martin, though a good fighter on occasions, preferred the arts of peace, and liked best treating with and managing the Indians.