The Great Patents of Land w<=b had been purchased & taken up in those parts & our extended scattered Settlements beginning to crowd upon the Indians, had been a long Eye sore to them, infected them with Jealousy & disgust towards the English &they prepared them to be more easily influenced by the prosperity of the French Affairs & the ill success of our Arms ; and when they saw after M'" Braddocks Defeat & Death, our Military Opperations ended as it were to the Southward & carried to the Northward, they joined the French and their Indians in their Dopradations upon the Open & Defenceless Frontiers of those Provinces.

The Third & last cause I shall suggest is my suspicion that these Indians who used to be more immediately under the direction of the Southern Provinces, had been either neglected or injudiciously treated at that critical time when the greatest address was requisite; something of this kind is hinted in the last proceedings vf^^. I transmitted to your Lordships.

aiANUSCRIPTS OF

These hints I humbly submit to your Lordships consideration, as tliis is a very important affair, I apprehended 1 might with propriety offer my thoughts thereon. There are some othet particulars relative to this subject for w*i I beg leave to refer your Lordships to the Papers herewith., In those your Lordships will perceive a Meeting at Onondaga was proposed by the Southern Indians in consequence of a Deputation sent to them at my earnest request by the Six Nations, at w^ii, I agreed to be present & named the Day. but as I was from Informations very doubtful wliether the Southern Indians were come to Onondaga according to tlieir appointment, and the Two Mohock Castles with some other Indians of all the 6 Nations (except tlie Onondagas) were so averse to my attending this meeting at this critical juncture, I thought it would be prudent to be certain whether those Indians were actually at Onondaga before I undertook my journey thither^ as the meeting them was my chief inducement for promising to go there, Messengers were accordingly dispatcht, & y' Lordships will see the Answer they have brought from the Onondaga Indians, and that they are so extremely pressing for my coming up & give such cogent reasons for it that I apprehend the good of His Majestys service will not dispense with my refusal, I am therefore preparing to set off so as to be there by the time appointed & I have Gen'.