Maclean to Haldimand. Reports the state of the feelings of the Indians as to the boundaries and of the reports brought by the Oneida Indians of the bloody threats made by Schuyler against the Indians and whites,especially Sir John Johnson and Butler. "The Indians from the surmises they have heard of the boundaries, look upon our conduct to them as treacherous and cruel; they told me they never could believe that our King could pretend to cede to America what was not his own to give, or that the Americans would accept from him what he had no right to grant.
That upon a representation from the Six Nations in the year 1768, the King had appointed Sir William Johnson a commissioner to settle the boundaries between the Indians and the Colonies. That a line had been drawn from the head of Canada Creek (near Fort Stanwix) to the Ohio; that the boundaries there settled were agreeable to the Indians and the colonies, and never had been doubted or disputed since; that the Indians were a free people, subject to no power upon earth; that they were the faithful allies of the King of England not his subjects; that he had no right whatever to grant away to the States of America their rights or properties without a manifest breach of all justice and equity and they would not submit to it.
They added that many years ago, their ancestors had granted permission tothe French King to build trading houses, or small forts, on the water communication between Canada and the Western Indians, in the heart of their country, for the convenience of trade only, without granting one inch of land but what the forts stood upon, and that at the end of the last war, they granted leave to Sir William Johnson to hold these forts for their ally the King of England, but that it was impossible from that circumstance only to imagine that the King of England should pretend to grant to the Americans all the whole country of the Indians lying between the lakes and the fixed boundaries as settled in 1768, between the colonies and the Indians, or that any part of it could be claimed by the Americans or granted by the English to them."
They did not wish to go to war with, or expect friendship from either. "They would not be the aggressors, but they would defend their own just rights, or perish in the attempt to the last man; they were but a handfulof small people, but they would die like men, which they thought preferable to misery and distress if deprived of their hunting grounds." The charge of treachery and cruelty is repeated, of which only Christians were capable; the Indians would not act so to friends and allies. He (Maclean) believed that the language though strong was a true translation. He had sent them away content, telling them that the Oneidas had deceived them, and that the Americans would not wish the loss by war of their own people for the sake of a few miles of desert.
They promise to be quiet and silent till he (Haldimand) had heard from England; that Haldimand had always been their true friend and had always kept his word with them, but ask that when Sir John Johnson comes, Washington be requested to send Schuyler to meet him. The report of Schuyler's threat had already made a number of the Delawares quit Buffalo Creek, cross at Fort Erie and to Grand River, 50 miles beyond Fort Erie. Maclean repeats the request that Joseph Brant be kept in Canada at present.