This wholesale and vindictive barbarity, while it betrayed the spirit which filled the savages, had the still farther effect of encouraging them in a warfare which had so far gratified very equally their appetites for blood and booty.

In addition to this natural effect, the result of their own wild passions, there were other influences, from without, at work among them.
Certain French emissaries had crept into their towns and were busily engaged, with bribes and arguments, in stimulating them to continued warfare.

This, in all probability, was the secret influence, which, over all, kept them from listening, as well to their own fears, as to the urgent suggestions of the British authorities, for peace.

Hitherto, the Cherokees had given no ear to the temptations of the French, whom they considered a frivolous people, and whose professions of faith they were very likely to have regarded with distrust.

But the labors of their emissaries at this juncture, harmonizing with the temper of the nation, were necessarily more than usually successful.