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 Road; but in the earliest days that slight track furnished a moral support that can hardly be exaggerated. The vast population that surged westward over it was a mighty barrier which protected the rear of the colonies from the savages, until savage warfare was at an end. Though the frontiers of New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia suffered greatly during the Revolution, it was Kentucky that was the thorn in the side of the British; Kentucky drew the fire of both British and Indians which otherwise would have desolated the rear of the eastern colonies, and necessitated a greater number of men than could possibly have been maintained there. It was not at Fort Pitt that the British were constantly striking, but at the Kentucky "stations;" it was not up the Allegheny or Monongahela that Colonel Burd pushed his keel boats, but up the Licking. This fact is splendidly urged by Col. John Floyd, in a letter to the governor of Virginia written on the sixth of October, 1781, in a plea for assistance in maintaining the Kentucky settlements:

" A great deal more might be said