George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 4, 15th edition.

‘ [349] Your people have killed that number of ours, and

chap. XV.} 1759.

more, and therefore that is the least I will accept of I shall give you till to-morrow morning to consider of it, and then I shall expect your answer.’¹ ‘I have ever been the firm friend of the English,’ answered the chief; ‘I will ever continue so; but for giving up the men, we have no authority one over another.’

Yet after the governor had exchanged Oconostata and one or two more for other Indians, he sent again to Attakulla-kulla, and on the twenty-sixth of December got the signature of six Cherokees to a treaty of peace, which seemed to sanction the governor's retaining the imprisoned envoys as hostages, till four andtwenty men should be delivered up to undergo punishment for the murders. It was further covenanted that the French should not be received in their towns, and that the English traders should be safe.

This treaty was not made by chiefs duly authorized, nor ratified in council; nor could Indian usage give effect to its conditions. Hostages are unknown in the forest, where prisoners are slaves. No one was deceived.² Lyttleton, in fact, had only with profligate falsehood violated the word he had plighted, and retained in prison the ambassadors of peace, true friends to the English, ‘the beloved men’ of the Cherokees, who had come to him under his own safe conduct. And yet he gloried in having obtained concessions such as savage man had never before granted; and, returning to Charleston, he took to himself the honor of a triumphant entry.

The Cherokees longed to secure peace; but the