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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Letter from William Tryon to John Stuart
Tryon, William, 1729-1788
March 28, 1769
Volume 08, Pages 22-23

[From Tryon's Letter Book.]
Letter from Governor Tryon to John Stuart Esq. Superintendant &c.

Brunswick the 28th March 1769.

It gives me much concern to learn by your letter that many hunters on the western frontiers of this province make frequent incursions into the Cherokee Hunting Grounds and destroy their game, Evils which, as you justly observe may terminate in an open rupture, if measures are not taken to prevent such abuses. My most active endeavors have been engaged to prevent every possible injustice being shewn the Cherokees, and I flatter myself they are sensible. I am their friend. The difficulties that arise in my administration for want of the boundary line being closed between the Carolinas are various, and the disorders you mention are in the number of them. I have urged in my letters to his Majesty's Secretary of State the necessity of this partition line being speedily executed, for as long as the boundary remains undetermined from the eastward of the Catawba lands (where it terminated by a line run in 1764) to the partition line of North Carolina and the Cherokee nation, the inhabitants in those parts must continue in a great measure, in a state of disobedience to all government. I shall lay your letter before his Majesty's Council the first opportunity and consult if any check can be put to the abuses you mention, and of which I have the utmost abhorrence.

Juds Friend the Young Warrior and five other Cherokee Indians paid me a visit last January. I then asked them if they had any complaints against the frontier settlers of this province, they answered none: they had been long from their nation, so possibly might not have heard of the depredations of which you have received intelligence. The young Warrior was very desirous of going to pay his Majesty a visit, and said he wanted a minister in their nation to lead them into light. Those inclinations I recommended him to communicate

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to you as the proper channel for soliciting the accomplishment of such desires. If they make me another visit they should arrive while the General Assembly is sitting, I should then recommend them to the liberality of that body.

I am Sir &c.a