The Lower House. 345

Mr. Lloyd brings in and delivers to Mr. Speaker, the following
Address, viz.
To his Excellency Horatio Sharpe, Esq; Governor and Commander
in Chief in and over the Province of Maryland :
The humble Address of the House of Delegates.
May it please your Excellency,
In Answer to your Message of the 6th Instant, which you were
pleased to send us, with an Extract of a Letter without Date from
the Honourable Mr. Atkin, we must beg Leave to repeat, that by a
Bill some Time ago sent to the Upper House, we made such a Pro-
vision as we judged most expedient for cultivating the Friendship
and engaging the Assistance of the Southern Tribes of Indians, and
establishing them in the British Interest. In doing this, we could
not imagine we were interfering in Matters which the Honourable
Mr. Atkin, his Majesty's Agent and Superintendent of Indian Affairs,
had the sole Power and Right of managing, and which, as he says,
he has Reason to believe the several Governors have been cautioned
not to do.
We presume this Affair must have very lately come to your Ex-
cellency's Knowledge, or you would not have applied to us (as you
did in your Message of the first Instant) to know whether we would
choose to employ the Fifty-six Cherokees that were then at Fort
Frederick, offering their Service to us; but would rather have given
us the Information you now do, of the extensive Commission under
which Mr. Atkin acts.
Could we have imagined that it was expressly contrary to Treaties
made with the Cherokee Tribes, that they should demand or even
expect any certain Reward for Scalps (after having seen those Re-

L.H.J.
Liber No. 49
Dec. 12

wards offered by and accepted from the neighbouring Governments)
and that those Indians have already been told so by Mr. Atkin, and
likewise that every Person (except himself) was, by his most Gra-
cious Majesty, strictly forbidden to concern with the Indians in the
Southern District of America, or their Affairs, we should probably
have framed our Bill for giving Rewards, in such a Manner as should
be most agreeable to the Royal Instructions; and we are of the
Opinion, that the Method proposed in our Supply-Bill, sent to the
Upper House this Session, would have been so in every Respect,
except that, by that Bill, your Excellency or the Commander in Chief
for the Time being (instead of Mr. Atkin) was impowered to direct
the Distribution of those Rewards, in Proportion to the Services
respectively performed by the Indians for his Majesty's Service,
and the Protection of our Frontier Inhabitants, whether they killed
or made Prisoners any of the Enemy or not.
The Cherokees that now are on our Frontiers, or such other Parties
as may come, we suppose are well informed, that it is to Mr. Atkin
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