“2d.  The only Interpreters are Seminole negroes, who, for the most part, find it difficult to understand English.  As an instance of the numerous mistakes occurring daily, may be mentioned the following:  The General told the interpreter to say to Nettetok Emathla, that ’patience and perseverance would accomplish everything.’  While he was speaking to the Indian, the remark was made that he did not know the meaning of the sentence.  When questioned the following day, he said ’patience and ‘suverance mean a little book,’ Our laughter convinced him he was mistaken, and he said ’patience mean you must be patien; I don’t zackly know what ‘suverance do mean, sar!’ Numerous errors of this nature are doubtless occurring daily, and among a people who are so scrupulously nice and formal in their ‘talks,’ such trifling mistakes may be injurious.

“3d.  We are now to speak of the most important difficulty in the way of termination of hostilities, and the removal of the Seminoles to their new homes beyond the ‘Muddy Water.’  That the Indians are and have been supplied by whites, Americans or Spaniards, is a point so decisively settled that ‘no hinge is left whereon to hang a doubt.’  However shameless it may appear, proofs are not wanting to establish the fact, so much to the discredit of our patriotism.  When Coacoochee escaped from St. Augustine he carried with him bolts of calico and factory cloths, which he afterwards sold to the Indians in the woods for three chalks (six shillings) per yard.  It was reported to Colonel Taylor, then at Fort Bassinger, by an Indian woman, who ran away from Coacoochee’s camp, that he had one poney packed solely with powder; that he had plenty of lead, provisions, etc., and was determined never to come in or go to Arkansas.  On several occasions when Indians have been killed or taken, or their camps surprised, new calico, fresh tobacco, bank bills, and other articles of a civilized character, have been found in their possession.  Besides, this, the Indians are constantly reporting in their talks that some persons on the other side of the territory prevent the hostiles from complying with the treaty.  Ethlo Emathla, Governor of the Tallahassees, promised the general to be in with his people on a specified day.  It is reduced almost to a certainty that he has been prevented from doing so by the representations of some person or persons in a quarter, the name of which charity alone forbids to mention.  The only object is, and for a long time has been, to keep entirely out of the way, to hide themselves from the whites, and every effort to bring them to battle, either by sending small or large parties among them, has proved useless. They will not fight, and thirty thousand men cannot find them, broken up as they are into small parties.  What then is to be done?  Protect the inhabitants of the frontiers, gradually push the Indians south, and at no distant day, the necessary, unavoidable and melancholy consummation must arrive, viz., the expulsion of the last tribe of red men from the soil over which they once roamed the sole lords and possessors.”