In 1838, Jesup and senior officers were impressed with the fact that the best interests of the Government, if not in justice and humanity to the Indians, required that they should be permitted to occupy in peace their homes in the southern part of the peninsula.

   General Jesup offered to recommend to the authorities at Washington that the Seminoles be allowed to remain in the country, and occupy the territory granted them by the Treaty of Camp Moultrie.

   The General wrote the Secretary of War from Ft. Jupiter advising the Department to terminate hostilities by allowing the Seminoles and Maroons to remain in the region they were now occupying.

   "In regard to the Seminoles we have committed the error of attempting to remove them when their lands were not required for agricultural purposes; when they were not in the way of the white inhabitants, and when the greater portion of their country was an unexplored wilderness, of the interior of which we were as ignorant as of the interior of China.

   "We exhibit in our present contest the first instance, perhaps, since the commencement of authentic history, of a Nation employing an army to explore a country (for we can do little more than explore it), or attempting to remove a band of savages from one unexplored wilderness to another."

   The General then apologizes for commenting upon the policy of the Government and, continuing, says that the prospect of terminating the war within a reasonable time is anything but flattering. "My decided opinion is," says he, "that unless immediate emigration be abandoned, the war will continue for years to come, and at constantly accumulating expense."

   The Secretary's response commenced as follows:

   "Sir: As you have in several of your letters expressed an opinion of the impossibility of removing the Seminoles, and a doubt of the policy .... it becomes necessary to explain to you the views of the Executive ....")

    "Whether the Government ought not to have waited until the Seminoles were pressed upon by the white population, and their lands become necessary to the agricultural wants of the community, is not a question for the Executive now to consider .... I cannot, therefore, authorize any arrangement with the Seminoles by which they will be permitted to remain, or assign them any portion of the Territory of Florida as their future residence."

   The simple "conditions" demanded by the Seminoles are well known to the reader. When one considers the situation calmly and without prejudice, he must acknowledge that the bloodshed and devastation which marked the Seminole War were directly chargeable to the selfish policy of our enlightened Government, and not to the "blood-thirsty savages," who were simply defending their rights like the true patriots they were.