barrass the negotiations with the Creeks was
believed to be his real design. He was closely watched, and
measures were taken to render any attempts he might make
abortive.]

[Footnote 47: See note, No. IV. at the end of the volume.]

[Sidenote: Treaty with the Creek Indians.]

The pacific overtures made to the Indians of the Wabash and the Miamis
not having been equally successful, the western frontiers were still
exposed to their destructive incursions. A long course of experience
had convinced the President that, on the failure of negotiation, sound
policy and true economy, not less than humanity, required the
immediate employment of a force which should carry death and
destruction into the heart of the hostile settlements. Either not
feeling the same impressions, or disposed to indulge the wishes of the
western people, who declared openly their preference for desultory
military expeditions, congress did not adopt measures corresponding
with the wishes of the executive, and the military establishment[48]
was not equal to the exigency. The distresses of the frontier
establishment, therefore, still continued; and the hostility they had
originally manifested to the constitution, sustained no diminution.

[Footnote 48: On giving his assent to the bill "regulating
the military establishment of the United States," the
President subjoined to the entry in his diary the remark,
that although he gave it his sanction, "he did not conceive
that the military establishment was adequate to the
exigencies of the government, and to the protection it was
intended to afford." It consisted of one regiment of
infantry, and one battalion of artillery, amounting in the
total, exclusive of commissioned officers, to twelve hundred
and sixteen men.]

[Sidenote: United States in relations with Great Britain and Spain.]

No progress had been made in adjusting the points of controversy with
Spain and Britain. With the former power, the question of boundary
remained unsettled; and the cabinet of Madrid discovered no
disposition to relax the rigour of its pretensions respecting the
navigation of the Mississippi. Its general conduct furnished no
foundation for a hope that its dispositions towards the United States
were friendly, or that it could view their growing power without
jealousy.

The non-execution of the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th articles of the treaty
of peace, st