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.