We know now that the portion of this Proclamation relating to western settlement was a wise provision designed to protect the settlers on the frontier by allaying the suspicions of the Indians, who viewed with apprehension the triumphal occupation of that vast territory from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico by the colonizing English.

By seeking to compel all land purchase to be made through the Crown, it was designed likewise to protect the Indians from "whisky purchase," and to make impossible the transfer of their lands except with consent of the Indian Council, or full quota of headmen, whose joint action alone conveyed what the tribes considered to be legal title.

Sales made according to this form, Sir William Johnson declared to the Lords of Trade, he had never known to be repudiated by the Indians.

This paragraph of the Proclamation was in substance an embodiment of Johnson's suggestions to the Lords of Trade.

Its purpose was square dealing and pacification; and shrewd men such as Washington recognized that it was not intended as a final check to expansion.