LbC in William Smith Shaw’s hand (Adams Papers); internal address: “Col Smith.”; APM Reel 119.

In his letter to JA of 16 May (Adams Papers), WSS enclosed a packet of documents relating to JA’s Dec. 1798 meetings with representatives of several Native American tribes, for which see William Smith Shaw to AA, 20 Dec., and note 1, above. WSS claimed that, contrary to what James McHenry told Shaw, the chiefs left Philadelphia “highly irritated” and no longer bearing a “friendly aspect” toward the United States. WSS reported that Jonathan Schieffelin (1762–1837), a land speculator and the agent of Indian affairs at Detroit, was “apprehensive” about future diplomacy unless he was “authorised to say, that Commissioners will be appointed, to hear and report fully, to Goverment the subjects of their uneasiness.” WSS informed JA, “I seriously believe, that there is an absolute necessity of holding a conference, with them or immediately reinforcing the frontier posts.” He further noted the possibility of French or Spanish interference along the Mississippi River “to take the advantage of the present dissatisfied state of the Indian mind,” which WSS alleged could be “tranquilized, by pursuing that system of benevolence, and expanded Justice, which is due from the Civilized to the savage Man” (Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 8 May 1799; Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present, eds. Hartmut Berghoff and Uwe Spiekermann, www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org).