Note V-7 — Chapter V · CORRESPONDENCE AND CONFERENCES.[V-1]

"The within articles" are those of the Sioux Treaty of same date, inclosed in this letter to General Wilkinson, which reached St. Louis on or about Nov. 26th, 1805, and was immediately communicated in full to the Secretary of War. A manuscript copy of the original is on file in the Record Division of the War Department, together with two copies of General Wilkinson's own letter to General Dearborn on the same subject and other topics. I might reproduce the manuscript of Pike's letter textually, but as the copy before me is in a clerk's hand, its peculiarities being thus not Pike's own, it is not worth while to replace the above fair imprint of the original with another version which would show no difference except in its clerical errors. See preceding article for a criticism of the treaty itself which formed the inclosure of the present letter. One passage from General Wilkinson's unpublished letter to the Secretary of War may be here cited: "He [Pike] tells me he has no doubt of being able to make Lake Sable in pretty good Season, but observes that the source of the River is in 'Lake Sang Sue,' about sixty Leagues further North & that He must 'see that also'—in which case he will have stretched his orders & we shall not hear of Him before the Spring—He reports that our flag is every where received with pleasure, & that he had patched up a Peace between the Scioux & Chepaways, who are generally at War——"