attack of the Shawanesse towns; and Capt. Preston speaks in his Journal of the design to go "to the Shawne Towns." Washington's Letters indicate "the Shawanese Town" as the point of attack, and Mr. Sparks says that it was situated at the mouth of the great Kenawha. To be a little more precise, its locality was on the Southern bank of the Ohio, just above Old Town Creek, three miles above Point Pleasant, and was known as the Upper Shawanoe Town at the mouth of the Scioto. Inasmuch as the mouth of Sandy, where Lewis designed to strike the Ohio, was about midway between these two important Shawanoe Settlements, it would appear probable that either or both were intended objects of attack, as circumstances might favor. Major Lewis in a letter to Capt. Preston now before me, dated Jan. 28th, 1756, says, he has received his "instructions from his Honor; they are not particular; he has left almost every thing to my management." It is impossible as yet to be more particular on this point.

The faithfulness of the noble old Cherokee Chief, when timidity and desertion swayed the minds of so many, very naturally inspires a wish to know something more concerning him. With some pains I have brought together, from various sources, the following sketch:

OUTACITE, OR THE MAN-KILLER, was among the most noted Cherokee chiefs of his day. The name he bore was the highest honorary title among the Cherokees, conferred as the reward of uncommon valor. As early as 1721, he was known as King of the Lower and Middle Cherokee settlements, and treated with Gov. Nicholson, of South Carolina; and in 1730, he was one of the Cherokee embassy, who visited England under the superintendence of Sir Alexander Cumming, and made a treaty with King George II. In 1755-'56, we find him in the service of the Colonies on the Virginia frontiers, serving patiently on

Lewis' disastrous Shawanoe Expedition, and probably participating in the defeat of Donville's party; and, in 1757, he joined Col. Washington at the head of twenty-seven warriors. What part he took, if any, in the Cherokee outbreak of 1758, we are ignorant; he was, however, one of the signers of the short-lived treaty of peace with Gov. Lyttleton, in Dec. 1759. From about this period he is generally mentioned as Outacité, or the Judd's Friend, in consequence of having saved, from the fury of his countrymen, a white man of the name of Judd, who was probably a trader. It was a richly deserved commemoration of a generous deed.

When, in 1760, the Cherokees succeeded in obtaining the surrender of Fort Loudon, in the Cherokee country, and treacherously fell upon Capt. Demeré and his fellow prisoners, Outacité made powerful exertions for the salvation of the whites, and but for his unwearied efforts none would probably have escaped the massacre. "He went around the field," say the newspaper accounts of the time, "ordering and calling to the Indians to desist, and the representations he made to them stopped the further progress and effects of their barbarous and brutal rage. He declares it as his opinion and resolution, that if they can now obtain peace,' there never shall be more war as long as the old warriors live.' " Out of about two hundred captives, Capt. Demeré and twenty-five others were inhumanly slaughtered-the large proportion saved, is a lasting commentary on Outacité's noble promptings of humanity at a time when all others seemed completely under the influence of the demon of blood.

In 1764-'65, we find him at the head of a party of Cherokees making a foray to the Mississippi, where he intercepted two French batteaux ascending the river, loaded with amunition designed for the Shawanoes, and with them cap

tured two French emissaries. He was a signer of the treaty of Lochabar, near Ninety-Six, in South Carolina, in Oct. 1770; in July, 1777, his name figures at the treaty of the Long Island of Holston, and, as we hear no more of him, he probably died soon after. He must, at this period, have been fully eighty years of age; and no Cherokee chieftain, except Attacullaculla or the Little Carpenter, has left behind him a more deservedly distinguished name.

Of the ROUND O, and YELLOW BIRD, who also accompanied Maj. Lewis on the Shawanoe Expedition, little is known-the former is said, in the newspapers of that day, to have died among his people of small pox, early in 1760; and a Cherokee chief bearing the name of the latter, signed the treaty of Hopewell in 1786, and that of Holston, in 1791.

LYMAN C. DRAPER.

COLONEL READ'S LETTERS.

[We are further indebted to our obliging correspondent, the author of the foregoing paper, and of a prior one in our last number on the same subject, for the following copies of Two Letters from Colonel Clement Read, of Lunenburg, to Colonel John Buchanan, of Augusta, taken, as he writes, from the originals in his possession; and which, we think, our readers will find valuable for the light they serve to shed on the state of things at the time when they were written, in the year after the Expedition against the Shawanees, just related.]

FROM COL. CLEMENT READ TO COL. JOHN BUCHANAN.

LUNENBURG, March 31, 1757.

Dear Colonel. I am sorry the Expedition so well intended against the Shawnesse is likely to be defeated, and all

our schemes for carrying it on rendered abortive by an illtimed jealousy and malicious insinuations. For God's sake, what view cou'd your people imagine I cou'd have in it; a prospect of gain I cou'd not have, as we proposed to go out as volunteers without pay or reward, but what depended only on fortune. Honour I cou'd not hope, for I was to go out only a common soldier. What then could be my inducements? Those indeed of deep penetration and profound skill in military achievements, and such as are happy enough to have M-s's craft, might see what my shallow understanding and weak capacity could not discover. But if I am to be credited, other principles induced me; 'twas the complaints of ye people, their distresses, the love of my country and the commands of the Council, prompted me to be so sanguine in the affair as I have been, and no other reason had I.

But as the people of your county have sent down their petition to the Council fill'd with complaints of the undue election and return of Col. Nash, (tho' he was chosen by the unanimous voice of the Augusta men at the election and Major Calloway and Obey Woodson, and they were the only persons that voted) I presume we may, without censure or reproach, decline having any thing further to do with it.

As I purpose to be at Williamsburg the latter end of April in order to settle my public accounts, I must be under the necessity of desiring you to come down and settle yo'r accounts of the monies put into your hands, by or before the 20th, otherwise I cannot perfect my settlement with the Commissioners: Pray, fail not and oblige

Yo'r mo. obed't hum. serv't,

CLEMENT READ.

TO COL. JOHN BUCHANAN, in Augusta.

By Capt. Parris.

From the Same to the Same.

LUNENBURGH, 9th August, 1757.

Dear Sir.-I received yours of the 1st instant, and am sincerely sorry for the distresses of your people, to hear of the murders daily committed, the captives daily taken, and of the people continually flying away from the inhuman. savage enemy, gives me unutterable concern; I sympathize with them and feel a share of their sufferings. And I truly condole with you, sir, the fugitive part you take; alas! to be forced to fly a second time before the destroying ravagers of our country, to be forced again with your family to seek a shelter for your lives in a part where probably you will be a third time routed, is really shockingintolerable. Poor miserable country! Poor ill-fated frontiers!

I rec'd a letter two daies agoe from the Governor, wherein he tells me he hath ordered a detachment of 250 men from the Virginia Regiment, that he ordered them to march to the protection of our frontiers on the 18th of July. I hope they are arrived, and that they will be serviceable, &c,

The alarm given us of the scituation of Bedford and Halifax are without foundation; and, by-the-bye, here I can't forbear taking notice that these alarming reports from our frontiers, when there is in fact no foundation for them, is really injurious and hurtful to the people: for after repeated advices of the depredations of the Indians, and as many expresses to the Governor concerning them, when 'tis discovered there is no foundation in fact for them, the Government imputes it [to] our idle fears, and are taught not to believe us, and so of consequence afford us no relief. Is not this very impolitic in us? To be sure it is.