XLVIII.

CHAP. Mississippi River. They refused to emigrate, and anothet Indian war was the consequence. Skulking through the 1834. swamps and woods of Florida, the savages would suddenly dash into the settlements to murder and destroy. Many valuable lives were thus lost. Among these were Major Dade, and more than a hundred men, who all perished by falling into an ambuscade. On the same day, the United States' agent, Mr. Wiley Thompson, and five of his friends were killed and scalped by Osceola, the leading chief of the Seminoles. The year before, Thompson had injudiciously offended the savage, by confining him in irons for a day. Though he feigned friendship, his proud spirit thirsted to revenge the insult. The Creeks joined the Seminoles, and attacked several villages, both in Georgia and Alabama. The unhealthy vapors of the swamps, the bites of poisonous snakes and insects, inflicted intense sufferings upon the troops. It was impossible to subdue the Indians, who, after their attacks upon the Whites, would retreat to their hiding-places in the swamps. Led by Osceola, the war, or rather skirmishing, continued for years; the troops were baffled again and again. At length his own policy, of making treaties only to break them, was practised upon himself. One day he appeared under a flag of truce at the American camp. General 1837. Jessup, who was in command, immediately made him prisoner, with all his followers. Osceola was sent to Charleston, and while there confined in Fort Moultrie, a fever terminated his eventful life.

Colonel Zachary Taylor, afterward President of the 1842. United States, was sent to succeed Jessup. Taylor, by great exertions, brought the war to a close, but not till it had lasted altogether seven years, and cost the nation 1836. many lives, and thirty millions of dollars.

During this administration, died John Marshall, one of the most remarkable men of the time, at the age of four-score. He had served in the army of the Revolution,