[Footnote: _Do_., Martin to Knox, August 23, 1788.]
Sevier led parties against the Indians without ceasing; and he and his
men by their conduct showed that they waged the war very largely for
profit. On a second incursion, which he made with canoes, into the
Hiawassee country, his followers made numerous tomahawk claims, or
"improvements," as they were termed, in the lands from which the Indians
fled; hoping thus to establish a right of ownership to the country they
had overrun. [Footnote: _Do_., Hutchings to Martin, July 11, 1788.]
The whites speedily got the upper hand, ceasing to stand on the
defensive; and the panic disappeared. When the North Carolina
Legislature met, the members, and the people of the seaboard generally,
were rather surprised to find that the over-hill men talked of the
Indian war as troublesome rather than formidable. [Footnote: _Columbian
Magazine,_ ii., 472.]
The militia officers holding commissions from North Carolina wished
Martin to take command of the retaliatory expeditious against the
Cherokees; but Martin, though a good fighter on occasions, preferred the
arts of peace, and liked best treating with and managing the Indians.
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