A few days later Colonel Casey again referred to the case of the Indians, suggested that the reports which his agents and others carried to the governor should be received with great caution, and remarked:—
“The one which I had the honor to receive from you a few days since, that more than one hundred Indians had left the reservation for the purpose of joining Leschi, proves to have been, what I believed at the time, a baseless fabrication. With a sincere desire to do justice to all, I will say that it is my firm belief, after weighing I trust with due consideration all the circumstances connected with the matter, that if, in dealing with the Indians on the Sound, a spirit of justice is exercised, and those who have charge of them are actuated by an eye single to their duties and the peace of the country, there need be no further difficulty.”
This unwarrantable slur called forth the following pungent reply from the governor. He had made no such report as Casey attributed to him:—
Lieutenant-Colonel Silas Casey.
Sir,—My reasons for declining to receive the Indians at your post have been already stated, and remain in full force. When the murderers, and those accused of murder, are, in compliance with my requisition, placed by you in the hands of the civil authority, the Indians will be received. The agents have positive orders to receive none of these Indians except by my written instructions. The Indians have been or will be indicted by the grand jury of the several counties. As you have proclaimed that hostilities have ceased, they are in your military possession.
In regard to your observations about the reports which my “agents and others carry to me,” as well as the reiterations of former observations in reference to the exercise of a spirit of justice, and the efforts of persons in charge of Indians being “actuated by an eye single to those duties and the peace of the country,” I have simply to state that the tone of them is offensive, and comes with an ill grace from the authority which has done little to that which has done much. It is not my disposition to retaliate, but the occasion makes it proper for me to state that the greatest difficulty I have had to encounter in stopping the whiskey traffic with the Indians at Steilacoom and Bellingham Bay has been the conduct of your own command. It would seem to be more appropriate that you should first control and reform the conduct of your own people, before going out of your way to instruct and rebuke another branch of the public service,—a service, too, which, both from its experience and the success which has attended its labors, is entitled to the presumption that it is as much interested in, and as much devoted to, the peace of the country as yourself, and as well qualified, to say the least, to consider dispassionately and to judge wisely of affairs at the present juncture.
I have also been informed of your thanking God, in the presence of Mr. Wells, who informed you how the Muckleshoot reservation was laid off, that the iniquity of it was not upon your hands,—a remark highly presumptuous and insulting, as well from the fact that the business did not concern you, as from the fact that the reservation was laid off both in the way I arranged with the Indians at the council on Fox Island and to their entire satisfaction on the ground.
Very respectfully your obedient servant,
Isaac I. Stevens,
Governor and Supt. Indian Affairs.
N.B. I will respectfully ask you to send me a copy of my letter notifying you that one hundred Indians had left to join Leschi.