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Sir:

By Major Evans’ Express I am favoured with the opportunity of informing your Excellency of the hostile disposition of our Savage neighbours. On the 30th of October four men were killed between here and Kentucky near this settlement, they were uncommonly massacred with signs of war and cruelty. On the 2d Instant a man was dangerously wounded within a few steps of Col. Bledsoe’s door. The day following a Negro boy taken prisoner within a few miles of the same place, but immediately released. On the 10th three men were killed and another wounded near the extreme parts of this settlement; I am informed about the same time several boats from the

Illinois and Falls of the Ohio, laden with Merchandise and bound for this place, were taken in the river and the men all killed, so that immigration and commerce seem to be finally stopt. In consequence of these alarming circumstances our officers, Civil and Military, collected together with a full determination that the perpetrators should not pass with impunity, but after serious and mature consideration concluded by endeavouring to pursue the enemy we might inadvertantly fall upon those who possessed friendship to the United States, and by that means involve us in a war with the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations. I therefore thought it might be most prudent to inform your Excellency of our present situation and am pursuaded that Government or the honorable Continental Congress will interfere in our behalf, as it is beyond a doubt that those Savage barbarities are Countenanced and encouraged by a foreign Court.

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