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 ruary 6th, and so wrote to Governor Dobbs, of North Carolina, but in this he was premature; and finding out his mistake, he rebuked Major Lewis for his tardiness. At the same time he charged the Major to "take care [that] Mr. Pearis behaves well and keeps sober." The distance, he thinks, is 200 miles. He concludes as follows: "I have no further orders than desiring you to keep up good discipline- and your people in good morality, forbidding swearing and all other vices, and put your trust in God, the protector and disposer of all things."

We pause to mention that in February, 1756, John O'Neil was examined by the County Court on the charge of speaking treasonable words and acquitted, but being convicted of "abusing the government and cursing the Bible" he was held for trial.

The expedition having started at last, Governor Dinwiddle turned his attention for a time to other matters. He indited a long report to the Lords of Trade on the state of the province. In this he broaches the idea of a chain of forts from the head waters of the Potomac, upon the ridges of the Alleghany, to the North Carolina line, for the protection of the frontier, and also the establishment of another colony west of the Alleghany, with such indulgences in matters of religion, &c., as would induce Protestant Dissenters to settle in that region.

In March, 1756, the Provincial Assembly passed an act providing for the construction of the forts referred to—"to begin at Henry Enoch's, on Great-Cape-Capon, in the county of Hampshire, and to extend to the south fork of Mayo river, in the county of Halifax."

In regard to the Dissenters in the province, the laws affecting them were always relaxed in times of war or public danger, and many of them were disposed to act as if all such laws were abolished. We find that the Rev. John Brown, of New Providence, was so imprudent as to perform the marriage ceremony twice in 1755 for members of his flock, but, discovering his mistake, he did not officiate again in that manner till 1781, when the law authorized him to do so. — [See list of marriages by Mr. Brown, published in Staunton Spectator of December 18, 1866.]

We are not done, however, with Governor Dinwiddle's report to the Lords of Trade. He had been endeavoring for more than four months to raise a thousand men for the protection of the frontier, but had not been able to recruit above half that