But another purpose had taken shape in his mind as he listened to accounts by frontier settlers and traders of the dangerous posture of Indian affairs. In the settlements there had been rumors when he left that the Indians would rise in the spring, and on the way Captain Russell had told him that a French agent had been busy for two years among the Lower Cherokee. At Keowee, too, the traders talked of the sullen temper of the Indians. It was at Keowee that Sir Alexander's enterprise, mad or inspired, was first revealed. On the night of March 23 the Indians were assembled as usual in the townhouse. There Sir Alexander dramatically appeared, armed 'with three cases of Pistols, a Gun and a Sword under a Great Coat.' Against this extraordinary breach of decorum the traders expostulated in vain. Cuming had determined, single-handed if need be, to overawe the Cherokee and force them to submit to the British interest. Of what ensued after Sir Alexander's speech in praise of King George two versions were given, the baronet's and Ludovick Grant's. They differed chiefly in interpretation. According to Grant, Cuming invited the traders, and they in turn persuaded the Indians, to join in drinking the health of His Britannic Majesty on bended knee. This strange ceremony Cuming chose to regard as an acknowledgment of 'his Majesty King George's Sovereignty over them,' such a submission, in fact, as 'they never before made either to God or Man.' Intoxicated by success in his vice-regal role, he summoned a general council of the three divisions of the Cherokee to meet at Nequasse on April 3.