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 434 against the cruelties and depredations of the savages, have been the prevailing and principal inducements to these people, thus, to their own private, as well as to the public detriment and loss, to become voluntary exiles.

Gentlemen in the administration may think, and I do believe they do think, that abundant provision has been already made for their protection and defence, as well by the several companies of Rangers sent out in the fall, as by the present expedition against the Shawanese, Whether the former of these measures has answered all the good ends, which, I presume, the Government had in view when it was resolved on, I undertake not to affirm or deny. And, whether the latter will, no man not endowed with the prophetic gift can foretell. However, I hope it will. But this is foreign to my purpose, which is to inform your Honor of the sentiments and reasonings of those people who are daily seeking new habitations out of this Government. And they, sir, notwithstanding those measures, and all others which have yet been pursued with the same views, look upon our frontiers to be in so insecure and defenceless a state as to justify their apprehensions that the same bloody tragedies which were acted at the expense of their neighbors last summer, will, if they stay, be re-acted the ensuing at their own.

If only fifty Indians, which they believe to be as many as were upon our borders in the south-west last year, made such havoc and desolation, drove off upwards of 2,000 head of cattle and horses to support themselves and the enemy at Fort Duquesne, besides what they wantonly destroyed; if so contemptible a band depopulated and ravaged so large a tract of country, they suspect, much greater numbers, animated and tempted by the extraordinary success of those few, will,