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Immediately upon receiving the letter from de Peyster, Gen. Allan Maclean had a portion of it carefully copied and sent to the Americans on July 31 with his own letter directed to Col. Marinus Willett:

I have this day received a letter from Lieutenant Colonel De Peyster, the Commanding Officer at Detroit, dated the 17th July, an extract from which letter I take the liberty of enclosing herewith, requesting that you will be pleased to transmit it, and this letter, to his Excellency, General Washington. Trifles may sometimes be the means of doing great mischief, which may be prevented by applying proper remedies in time. On the present occasion, the Virginians at Kentucky have been the aggressors, without any provocation on the part of the Indians, who are well disposed to cultivate peace and friendly intercourse with the people on the frontiers of the United States, provided they are not molested in their property or persons, by a number of people who come to settle at a considerable distance from the frontiers of the United States, that they may not be subjected to the controul of any legal law or government whatever. These lawless people would be glad to bring on an Indian war, to be an excuse for their depredations, and therefore will not scruple to misrepresent this last affair, and endeavor by that means to induce the United States to take up their quarrel. On this account I have thought it my duty to state this matter fairly and candidly, that the unlawful and improper conduct of the Kentuck people may not be a means of involving innocent people in misery and distress.

The missives, relayed to George Washington, were very gratifying to him and, even though the peace had not yet been finally concluded in Paris, the general began taking the steps necessary to remove the Indians from the lands that he knew the Americans would soon occupy and in which he himself had a very deep and personal interest in respect to extensive tracts of land he or his agents had already claimed and those he meant yet to claim. He cared not in the least that this was, in view of his position of power and influence in the United States government, a decided conflict of interest. George Washington had been feathering his own personal nest with Indian lands ever since his family first became involved with the Ohio Land Company in 1748, and he did not mean to curtail the activity now, even though he was reputedly the richest man in America at this point.

George Washington had already presented to Congress a written paper, which he called a plan but what was in reality no less than a monumental conspiracy, by which the western lands belonging to the Indians could now most easily, most bloodlessly and least expensively be wrested from them. He suggested, in order to "induce than to relinquish our territories and remove to the illimitable regions of the West," that the Indians be maneuvered into positions where they had little choice but to sell their lands. Since the expense of a major war could not be shouldered by the young and still newly shaping United States government, he recommended that all efforts should be made to implant as many new settlers as possible on Indian lands. In order to do this, his plan went on, grants of land should be made to veterans of the Revolutionary War from such parcels in Indian territory as the Virginia Military Lands and the Western Reserve Lands -- grants that were either free, as bounty for services previously performed, or priced so low that few would be able to pass up the opportunity of buying and settling. George Washington went on to make special mention of the fact that these settlers, being largely veterans of the war and experienced soldiers, might tend to awe the Indians. Even if they did not, his plan continued, and the Indians rose up in arms, these settlers would then make excellent militia to protect the United States claims in the Ohio country.

Washington's remarkably encompassing plan then pointed out a particular bonus of such settling that might otherwise have escaped the notice of Congress: the fact that in heavily populating the Northwestern Territory, the settlers would soon kill off all the game and make the land so unattractive to the Indians that "they will be as eager to sell as we are to buy. "

He then very meticulously laid out for Congress a blueprint of negotiations for such lands. First, government agents should point out to the Indians that as allies of the British, they had become conquered when the British surrendered and, as a conquered people, they had no land rights or rights of any other kind and therefore could not make demands; yet that the United States, in its generosity, would, if the Indians gave up their alleged claims, pay them a certain amount and also provide them with new lands of their very own farther to the west. In such negotiations, the plan continued, treaty commissioners could promise them that the United States government "will endeavor to restrain our people from hunting or settling" on the new lands that had so generously been given to the tribes. Yet at the same time, already beginning to hedge before the agreement was even made, the plan made it clear that despite the promises made, the restrictions barring settlement on the Indian reserves would be very temporary; that, as always occurred on the frontiers, the bolder of the settlers would begin penetrating and settling the Indians' territory, and when the Indians complained, as they obviously would, new negotiations could be undertaken and, with careful maneuvering, the tribes would again be forced farther west. Those commissioners who handled the treaties. Washington advised, should acquire the reserved Indian lands as cheaply as possible and, most important, always deal with tribes on an individual basis and reject any attempt on their part to deal with the government as a unified body. By dealing with the tribes individually, he pointed out, there would be a much greater probability of resentment arising between the tribes themselves and a reduced likelihood that they might unite to give greater strength to their demands. The commissioners, Washington added, should also remain aware that circumspection was desirable and that they should not, at any given time, "grasp at loo much" lest some form of such unified resentment spring up and balk the westward expansion. As Washington stated it, "There is nothing to be obtained by an Indian war but the soil they live on and this can be obtained by purchase at less expense." It would be, Washington concluded, "the cheapest and least distressing way of dealing with them." Apart from the fact that it was immoral, unethical and actually criminal, this plan placed before the Congress by George Washington was so logical and well laid out that it was immediately accepted practically without opposition and at once put into action. There might be -- almost certainly would be -- further strife with the Indians, new battles and new wars, but the end result was, with adoption of Washington's plan, inevitable: Without even realizing it had occurred, the fate of all Indians in the country was sealed. They had lost virtually everything.

A strong sense of discomfiture dawned gradually on the Indians as, in continued talks with both American and British delegates, they realized that their own allies, the British, had sold them out to save their own necks; that the British had not invited any Indian emissaries to the peace talks in Paris, nor given even the least consideration to the red people who had fought hardest, yet the Indians had suffered greatest and had the most to lose -- the people whose very homelands were the principal consideration of the talks; and that the British had conceded to the Americans any rights they had to the territory to the north and west of the Ohio River.

At the same time, conceiving that new difficulties would arise between themselves and the Americans in the future, the British embarked on a strong program to convince the Indians that King George was still their greatest friend among the whites and the most concerned for their welfare. …