"Captain Morrison I did not see. Not perhaps being as fruitful in expedients as some others of them, he stopped at Fort Jackson, and sent to New Orleans for transportation outfit, etc., and passed the city on his way up, without but few knowing who he was, or anything else in relation to him. I learned indirectly from Major Clark, (who probably did not intend this admission for me,) that he had between twenty and thirty of the negroes on board belonging to this claim."
Comm'r Indian Affairs, Washington, D. C."
It is most obvious that Collins believed that the military officers of Government, who were serving at a distance from Washington, viewed his mission with no particular favor, and he evidently retired from New Orleans with some degree of indignation.
In the meantime, the claimant Love, despairing of obtaining the negroes, refused to enter bail for costs and damages, in case the suit should be determined against him in the higher court, and the sheriff delivered them over to Mr. Reynolds on the same day that Collins left the city. On the next day, Mr. Reynolds wrote the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, saying, "The thirty-one negroes who were arrested, seized from me and lodged in the jail of this city, were last evening surrendered to me. The Creek attorney (N. F. Collins, Esq.) nor any authorized agent being present, and not wishing to detain them at the expense of the Government, they were immediately embarked and dispatched West, with twenty-five days' provisions, under the charge of Assistant Conductor Benjamin, who, to satisfy the Indians, had been left with the negroes at the period of the service of the process; of which fact I informed the Department at the time."
These thirty-one prisoners who had been thus detained, were now once more under way for their western home. Their hearts appeared to beat more freely as the noble steamer, which bore them on their way to their friends and future homes, cut loose from her moorings and sped her way toward her destined port. On board that happy craft, also, were many smiles and hearty congratulations exchanged among those children of the forest, who had been borne along on the tide of ever-varying circumstances. Although helpless and penniless, and apparently friendless, they had almost miraculously escaped the meshes which our Government and the slave-dealers had spread for their destruction. In due time they reached Fort Gibson, and were delivered over to the care of the proper agent, who conducted them to their friends. And now some nine hundred Seminoles, and some three to four hundred Exiles, had reached the Indian Country; they constituted the first party of that nation who, driven from their homes--their native wilds--had consented to be taken to a strange land.