To these letters McGillivray responded promptly in a style rather more polished though less frank than that of his correspondents.

His tone was distinctly more warlike and less conciliatory than theirs.

He avowed, without hesitation, that the Creeks and not the Americans had been the original aggressors, saying that "my nation has waged war against your people for several years past; but that we had no motive of revenge, nor did it proceed from any sense of injuries sustained from your people, but being warmly attached to the British and being under their influence our operations were directed by them against you in common with other Americans." He then acknowledged that after the close of the war the Americans had sent overtures of peace, which he had accepted--although as a matter of fact the Creeks never ceased their ravages,--but complained that Robertson's expedition against the Muscle Shoals again brought on war.

[Footnote: State Department MSS., No.

71, vol.ii., p.620.McGillivray to Bledsoe and Robertson; no date.] There was, of course, nothing in this complaint of the injustice of Robertson's expedition, for the Muscle Shoal Indians had been constantly plundering and murdering before it was planned, and it was undertaken merely to put a stop to their ravages.