Norfolk Gazette And Publick Ledger

Extract of a report made by a person appointed to enquire into the facts relative to the aggressions and hostile assemblage of Indians on the frontiers of Tennessee: On Monday the 2d inst. I proceeded on my route from Dover to the mouth of Duck river, and at Richland creek had a conversation with Famous Mortimore, the man who owned and had command of the boat when it was fired on by the Indians : Mr. Mortimore is intelligent, and I think, a man of veracity; he stated that on the third of April, ten miles above the mouth of Duck river the attack was made on the boat by the Indians from the north side of Tennessee, seven men were in the boat, out of which number two were killed and three wounded, the third man, who it was said, died of the wounds he received; is now on the recovery and out of danger. The Indians kept up a constant fire until the boat was out of reach. They then manned a perrogue and pursued about two miles, but discovering they could not overtake the boat hauled in : Mr. Mortimore further states, that on the twenty third of April. Levi Colbert came down the Tennessee to carry up the boat, and informed him, that 30 or 40 miles above the mouth of Duck river, he saw the party of Creeks, thirteen in number, who had made the attack on the boat, and told them he was going for the boat they had fired on; they at first denied it, but a Cherokee, one of the party, acknowledged it. They then confessed, observing they had not been satisfied, that one white man and two Indians had been killed, they had now killed one too many, but were not yet satisfied. Colbert was lately in the Creek nation, the chief said he wished peace, and would not go to war with the white people unless Buonaparte did; that the party who made the attack on the boat had not lived in the nation for ten years and the attack was unauthorised by the nation. From Richland creek I directed my course to the mouth of Duck river, and proceeded up that river to the settlement, about twelve miles above the mouth, and was enabled to ascertain-by information received from Labou Combes, that the statements made by William Meadows, upon which the orders of the major general of the 20th inst. are predicated, are utterly false.