DELAWARE COUNTY. 5 sent, that it may be forbidden to carry any of it amongst the Five Nations. ^Brethren — We are in great Fears about this Kum. It may cause murder on both sides. " ' The Cayugas now declare in their own name, that they will not allow any Eum to be brought up their River, and those who do must suffer the Consequences. " ' We, the Mohawks of both Castles have also one request to make, which is, that the people who are settled round about us, may not be Suffered to sell our People Eum. It keeps them all poor, makes them Idle and Wicked, and if they have any Money or Groods, they lay it all out in Rum. It destroys Virtue and the progress of Religion amongst us. [The lower Castle of the Mohawks has a Chapel and an English Mission- ary belonging to it,] We have a friendly request to make to the Grovernor and all the Commissioners here present — that they will help us to Build a Church at Canajoharie, and that we may have a bell in it, which, together with the putting a stop to the Selling of Rum^ will tend to make us Religious and lead better lives than we do now.' " , The English early adopted a plan of purchasing by treaty the territory of the Indians, and as early as 1683, the sachems of the Cayugas and Onondagas, to whom the Susquehanna country belonged, executed an instrument, sealed in the pre- sence of Robert Livingston, conveying said territory to the English government. These conveyances gave rise to unexpected difficulties ; the white settlers were continually overstepping the prescribed limits of the purchase, and trespassing upon the hunting- grounds of the aborigines. The Indians were continual in their complaint to the authorities having jurisdiction in the matter, and at last to avert an open rupture between the Six Nations and the Colonies, Sir William .Tohnson, then Commis- 1-^
