I have the honor to transmit herewith a copy of a report from the agent for the Cherokees, received since the transmission of the President's recent message to Congress, and copies of some letters from Generals Gaines and Arbuckle, containing further information in relation to the difficulties among those Indians. As the intelligence contained in these papers is of some importance, I would respectfully suggest that they be presented to the Senate, with the view of their being printed, in connexion with the other papers accompanying the President's message on the same subject.

Fresh excitements and additional aggressions have sprung up in the Cherokee nation within the last two or three weeks.

The occurrence which appears to have produced the greatest sensation, is the murder of a pretty prominent man of the administration or Ross party, named Stand, or Ta-kah tah-kah.

I would have made a communication to the department in regard to this occurrence, and others in the nation, at an earlier day, but under the existing state of affairs it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to obtain a correct statement of facts, from the rumors of the country in relation to any occurrence calculated to produce or rather keep up the prevailing excitement. It may be proper to remark that Stand, the deceased, was one of the company who murdered James Starr and others, when those Cherokee violences broke forth early in November last.

The history of this affair seems to be substantially as follows: Shortly after the killing of Stand, suspicion attached to a Cherokee named Wheeler Faught, as being accessory to the murder, who was neither a treaty nor Ritchie & Heiss, print. Ross man, but rather neutral in regard to Cherokee politics. He was, however, in the confidence of, and in habits of intimacy with, Stand, the deceased, and was equally so with the "Starr boys." The deep animosity which existed between the "Starr boys" and the party to which Stand adhered, is believed to be well known to the department. Each party knowing the intimacy of Faught with the other, they both made overtures to him: Stand to inveigle the Starr boys into his power, and they to operate on Stand in the same way. It seems both parties made liberal offers to effect their respective objects, though Faught closed with the propositions of the "Starr boys."

A dance was held on the night Stand was killed, which was pretty numerously attended. Among others, Stand and Faught attended. Some time after night Faught invited Stand to go out with him and take a drink of whiskey out of a jug he had hid out. Stand accordingly went, and while they were at the jug five guns were fired at Stand. Two balls took effect. He was stabbed eleven times and scalped. Faught returned to the dance, but said nothing about Stand being killed, nor was the fact known by the company till morning, when he was found in the situation above described. Under this state of facts, Faught was prosecuted and condemned as accessory to the murder, and is sentenced to be hung on the 26th instant. There appears to be no evidence as to who killed and scalped Stand, though from the above facts it is charged against the "Starr boys" and their friends.

For the purpose of arriving at the facts of the case, I sent my interpreter to attend the trial of Faught, and the foregoing is the purport of his statement.

There are also two other Cherokee men now under arrest and confinement, on a charge of being indirectly (as I understand) concerned in the above murder. What course may be ultimately taken with them I am unable to say.

There have also been three other murders lately committed in the nation. Two of the victims were Cherokees, and one a white man, citizen of the United States.

Martin Culsowee, a Cherokee, was found dead and supposed to have been murdered near Fort Gibson. Two Cherokees were charged with the offence, and tried, but acquitted. This appears to have been the result of dissipation, and unconnected with the politics of the nation, therefore little excitement was produced.

The other Cherokee, Samuel Martin, was murdered at Maysville, a little village on the Cherokee line. I understand the deceased was drunk at the time he was killed, and those charged with the murder were in the same situation. The Cherokees charged with this offence are now under arrest awaiting their trial. Their names are Squirrel, Muskrat, and Wicket. This affair appears also to be unconnected with party politics.

In the case of the white man who was murdered on the night of the 10th instant, the circumstances are as follows: Two wagoners, Reynolds and Weldon, who were travelling with their teams from Fort Gibson to Fort Smith, on the public military road, took up camp about equidistant between those forts. Shortly after dark, two Indians of the Uchee band, who live in the Creek nation, came to the camp and obtained something to eat. They remained but a short time and walked off. They went but a small distance into the dark, when both attempted to fire at the wagoners, who were standing by their camp fire. One of the guns discharged and killed Reynolds dead. The other gun refused fire, and Weldon made his escape. They robbed Reynolds of a small amount of money found about his person; stole two mules out of the teams, and made their way into the Creek nation.

I informed Col. Logan, agent for the Creek nation, of the occurrence, upon which Gen. McIntosh, the Creek chief, had them arrested, after which they confessed the whole matter. One of them, however, has since made his escape, though the Creeks are in pursuit of him, and it is believed he will be retaken. The other is in possession of the military at Fort Gibson, and will be sent on to Little Rock for trial in the district court of the United States.

There is also another case which has resulted in the death of a Cherokee, within a few days past. This case seems to partake of the character of a family quarrel. Crossland, the deceased, a Cherokee, and Brown, a white man, who killed him, were brothers-in law; both having Cherokee women for wives. A quarrel took place, and a fight ensued between the women in the presence of their husbands. This drew the men into a combat also, in which Crossland, the Cherokee, was killed. It is said that Brown was justifiable under the circumstances. He has voluntarily surrendered himself to the civil authority of the United States for trial.

I herewith enclose you the copy of a deposition made by John Williams, a white man living in the Cherokee nation, having a Cherokee woman for his wife, setting forth the conversation held with, and the threats made by, Anderson Springston, a member of the national committee.

It will be observed, from the foregoing statements, that the Cherokee nation is far from being in a state of tranquillity.

Appeared before me in Delaware district, Cherokee nation west, John Williams, a white man with a Cherokee family, on the 10th day of March, 1846, and made the following statement, to wit:

On the night of the 1st of March, 1846, about 8 o'clock, Anderson Springston, and another Cherokee by the name of Pigeon, both armed with guns, came to my house, and Springston called me to the door, and asked me to come and show them the way, as they were lost. I rather refused, and asked my wife to light a candle. Springston commenced swearing that he was not afraid of any man, and swore that he had come to kill me, and that a great many more had to die soon, to wit: Lynch, Thompson, Bell, Watie, and numerous others. He continued in that strain of conversation for about an hour, repeating frequently that he had come to kill me. I sent my negro boy with the candle to put them in the way. They were gone about an hour, and returned again. When the boy started to show them the road, Springston made the boy hold the candle for him to examine the cap on his gun. He sprang the trigger, and came rapidly back to the door with his gun presented. My wife put her hand on the muzzle of his gun, and told him not to shoot her. He said if he killed one he would kill all. Pigeon asked Springston to let him shoot me two or three times. Springston said no; wait awhile. He frequently asked Springston to make haste, and do what he came to do. He said no; he could not; he must get some person else to do it. After being absent about an hour, they again returned, and asked my negro boy where I was. He told them I was asleep; that he had better go in the other room and go to bed. He replied that he would if the boy would put their horses up, which he accordingly did. In the morning of the second of March they staid until after breakfast, during which time Springston again repeated all he had said the night previous; that there would be a great deal of blood shed soon; that he intended to come back some dreary night and kill me, and for me not to come out unless I knew his voice; and that if I shot, to make a sure shot, as it would be the last. He stated that others might come under his name and deceive me. Said Anderson Springston is, and was at the last national council, one of the members of the committee. When in conversation with me he said that he knew that Jim Starr was to be killed, but did not know the day it was to be done or would be done. He also swore that they intended to destroy Watie and his company; that Lieutenant Johnston's 45 dragoons could not prevent it.

Having carefully examined the documents numbered 1 to 5, inclusively, accompanied by Brigadier General Arbuckle's letter of the 19th ultimo to the Adjutant General of the army, in relation to the official murders in the Cherokee nation, I think myself in duty bound to address you, empowered as you are by law to protect the interests of the Indians, as secured to them by treaties and other laws of the United States, and express to you my cordial approbation of the prompt and judicious measures taken by that meritorious officer to arrest the progress of those scenes of outrage which strike at the root of that beautiful tree of civilization, planted by the hands of Washington and nurtured by his successors in office for near half a century past, and which may soon tend to blight its fruits amongst the whole of our red neighbors, and endanger the peace of our frontier inhabitants.

If the spirit of party which divided the Cherokee people ten years past had been guided by a moderate share of honesty, with a few grains of patriotism, surely no reasonable man can doubt but that the treaty-making party would at this time constitute more than nine tenths of the whole nation. The country at present owned by the Cherokee nation, lying west of the State of Arkansas, is deemed to be worth much more than that ceded by the treaty party to the United States, lying east of the Mississippi river; and when to this fact is added the known truth of the rapid advances which most of the Cherokee people have made in all the substantial elements of civilization, and the obvious growing wealth and prosperity of all but the harassed and persecuted members of the treaty-making party, it cannot but be matter of amazement to perceive that this unexampled prosperity, pervading, probably, nine tenths of the whole Cherokee people, is enjoyed mainly by the anti treaty-making party; not by the devoted friends of the United States at the time the treaty was made, but by that party, many of whom were known, ten years past, to be ready and willing to resume the tomahawk, and fight and die upon their lands east of the Mississippi, rather than exchange or sell them for anything like their estimated value. And what is now the condition of these devoted friends of the enlightened policy of removing the Indians westward, and thereby rescuing them from inevitable ruin? These patriotic men, who had the moral courage to make the exchange so essential to the existence of their people as a nation, and so much desired by the government and people of the United States—what is their present condition? Can it be believed that this philanthropic band—this ill-fated treatymaking party—have constantly been for ten years past, and still are, treated as traitors to their nation; their favorite chiefs and warriors, and of late their little children, shot down and murdered without the color of law, and without a crime! while their and our enemies of the years 1835 to 1837—the anti treaty making party—are unblushingly appropriating to themselves all the rich fruits of the treaty so violently opposed by them from its first inception to its final conclusion, regardless of the solemn provisions embraced in the treaty, and obligatory on all the Cherokees as upon the United States, guarantying the protection of the treaty-making party against the intriguing and infuriated chiefs and savages opposed to the treaty; a guaranty which every sound principle of natural law sustains, under the circumstances of the case, where the contracting parties were not independent nations, but an independent civilized nation acting as the natural guardian of, and treating with a dependant savage tribe, or at least a nation just then rising from the darkness of barbarism to the divine light of civilization. Such was the condition of the Cherokee nation at the time the treaty was made; and the master-spirits of that treaty were the brightest ornaments among the leaders of that glorious movement. The murdered Ridges and Boudinot will be remembered with gratitude, as the master-spirits of this great movement, when their enemies will be recollected only as their cold blooded murderers, actuated alone by a thirst for money and power.