Part 6

John Quincy Adams.

Washington, January 20, 1826

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 23d ultimo, I transmit herewith reports from the Secretary of War and the Commissioner of the General Land Office, with the statements desired by the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington, January 23, 1826

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 27th December last, requesting a statement of moneys paid out of the public Treasury to the late President of the United States as compensation for his services in various other offices which he has filled under the Government of the United States, and on other accounts, and also of claims for allowances made by him upon the Government which have been disallowed, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of the Treasury, with documents, containing the information desired by the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington, January 24, 1826

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 12th December last, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of the Navy, with the documents and proceedings of the naval courts-martial in the cases of Captain Charles Stewart and of Lieutenants Joshua R. Sands and William M. Hunter.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington, January 30, 1826

To the Senate of the United States:

I transmit herewith to the Senate, for their consideration and advice with regard to their ratification--

1. A treaty concluded on the 10th day of August, 1825, at Council Grove by Benjamin H. Reeves, George C. Sibley, and Thomas Mather, commissioners on the part of the United States, and certain chiefs and headmen of the Great and Little Osage tribes of Indians on the part of the said tribe.

2. A treaty concluded on the 16th day of August, 1825, at the Sora Kanzas Creek by the same commissioners on the part of the United States and certain chiefs and headmen of the Kanzas tribe or nation of Indians on the part of said tribe.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington, January 31, 1826

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 18th instant, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, with the correspondence with the British Government, relating to the boundary of the United States on the Pacific Ocean, desired by the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington, January 31, 1826

To the Senate of the United States:

I transmit herewith to the Senate, for their consideration and advice with regard to its ratification, a treaty concluded by the Secretary of War, duly authorized thereto, with the chiefs and headmen of the Creek Nation, deputed by them, and now in this city.

It has been agreed upon, and is presented to the consideration of the Senate as a substitute for the treaty signed at the Indian Springs on the 12th of February last. The circumstances under which this received on the 3d of March last your advice and consent to its ratification are known to you. It was transmitted to me from the Senate on the 5th of March, and ratified in full confidence yielded to the advice and consent of the Senate, under a firm belief, founded on the journal of the commissioners of the United States and on the express statements in the letter of one of them of the 16th of February to the then Secretary of War, that it had been concluded with a large majority of the chiefs of the Creek Nation and with a reasonable prospect of immediate acquiescence by the remainder.

This expectation has not merely been disappointed. The first measures for carrying the treaty into execution had scarcely been taken when the two principal chiefs who had signed it fell victims to the exasperation of the great mass of the nation, and their families and dependents, far from being able to execute the engagements on their part, fled for life, safety, and subsistence from the territories which they had assumed to cede, to our own. Yet, in this fugitive condition, and while subsisting on the bounty of the United States, they have been found advancing pretensions to receive exclusively to themselves the whole of the sums stipulated by the commissioners of the United States in payment for all the lands of the Creek Nation which were ceded by the terms of the treaty. And they have claimed the stipulation of the eighth article, that the United States would "protect the emigrating party against the encroachments, hostilities, and impositions of the whites and of all others," as an engagement by which the United States were bound to become the instruments of their vengeance and to inflict upon the majority of the Creek Nation the punishment of Indian retribution to gratify the vindictive fury of an impotent and helpless minority of their own tribe.