action of the peace commission in removing them beyond the reach of the laws. The sentiment of the sufferers by the Modoc outbreak, and those best informed upon the subject, was that it was an insult to the state, and an outrage upon individuals for the government to open this door of escape for Jack and his band.
The commissioners appointed by the government to conduct the negotiations with Captain Jack were at first A. B. Meacham, L. B. Odeneal, and J. H. Wilbur; but Meacham refusing to serve with either of these men for personal reasons, Jesse Applegate and Samuel Case were substituted. Canby was advised of the appointments, and also that the commissions were instructed to meet and confer with him at Linkville on the 15th of February. The commission was not, however, organized until the 18th, owing to the failure of Meacham to arrive on the day appointed. There was a general feeling that the commission would be a failure, a fact which was acknowledged by its chairman while yet at Yreka, in a telegram to Washington, conveying the intelligence that Governor Grover had filed a protest with the board against any action of the commissicn which should purport to condone the crimes of the Modocs, who should be given up and delivered over to the civil authorities for trial and punishment; and insisting that the commissioners could have no power to declare a reservation on the surveyed and settled lands of Lost river any more than on the settled lands in any other portion of the state. To this protest, which was forwarded to the secretary of the interior, Delano returned answer that the commission should proceed without reference to it; and that if the authority of the United States was defied or resisted, the government w^ould not be responsible for the results, and the state might be left to take care of the Indians without assistance from Washington.
To this somewhat insolent message the people could
