roads through the woods, to intercept and cut off our convoys, unless guarded continually by great bodies of men. The second kind of security will not be obtained by such forts, unless they were connected by a wall like that of China, from one end of our settlements to the other. If the Indians, when at war, marched like the Europeans, with great armies, heavy cannon, baggage, and carriages; the passes through which alone such armies could penetrate our country, or receive their supplies, being secured, all might be sufficiently secure; but the case is widely different. They go to war, as they call it, in small parties; from fifty men down to five. Their hunting life has made them acquainted with the whole country, and scarce any part of it is impracticable to such a party. They can travel through the woods even by night, and know how to conceal their tracks. They pass easily between your forts undiscovered; and privately approach the settlements of your frontier inhabitants. They need no convoys of provisions to follow them; for whether they are shifting from place to place in the woods, or lying in wait for an opportunity to strike a blow, every thicket and every stream furnishes so small a number with sufficient subsistence. When they have surprised separately, and murdered and scalped a dozen families, they are gone with inconceivable expedition through unknown ways; and it is very rare that pursuers have any chance of coming up with them*. In short, long experience

has

*Although the Indians live scattered, as a hunter's life requires, they may be collected together from almost any distance; as they can find their subsistence from their gun in their travelling. But let the number of the Indians be what it will, they are not formidable merely on account of

has taught our planters, that they cannot rely upon forts a sa sécurity against Indians: the inhabitants of Hackney might as well rely upon the tower of London, to secure them against highwaymen and housebreakers. As to the third kind of security, that we shall not, in a few years, have all we have now done, to do over again in America, and be obliged to employ the same number of troops, and ships, at the same immense expence, to defend our possessions there, while we are in proportion weakened here: such forts I think, cannot prevent this.

During

their numbers; there are many other circumstances that give them a great advantage over the English. The English inhabitants, though numerous, are extended over a large tract of land, five hundred leagues in length on the sea shore; and although some of their trading towns are thick settled, their settlements in the country towns must be at a distance from each other: besides, that in a new country where lands are cheap, people are fond of acquiring large tracts to themselves; and therefore in the out-settlements, they must be more remote: and as the people that move out are generally poor, they sit down either where they can easiest procure land, or soonest raise a subsistence. Add to this, that the English have fixed settled habitations, the easiest and shortest passages to which the Indians, by constantly hunting in the woods, are perfectly well acquainted with; whereas the English know little or nothing of the Indian country, nor of the passages through the woods that lead to it. The Indian way of making war is by sudden attack upon exposed places; and as soon as they have done mischief, they retire, and either go home by the same or some different route, as they think safest; or go to some other place at a distance, to renew their stroke. If a sufficient party should happily be ready to pursue them, it is a great chance, whether in a country consisting of woods and swamps, which the English are not acquainted with, the enemy do not lie in ambush for them in some convenient place, and from thence destroy them. If this should not be the case, but the English should pursue them, as soon as they have gained the rivers, by means of their canoes (to the use of which they are brought up from their infancy) they presently get out of their reach: further, if a body of men were to march into their country, to the place where they are settled, they can, upon the least notice,

"

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During a peace, it is not to be doubted the French, who are adroit at fortifying, will likewise erect forts in the most advantageous places of the country we leave them; which will make it more difficult than ever to be reduced in case of another war. We know by the experience of this war, how extremely difficult it is to march an army through the American woods, with its necessary cannon and stores, sufficient to reduce a very slight fort. The accounts at the treasury will tell you, what amazing sums we have necessarily spent in the expeditions against two very trifling forts, Duquesne, and

tice, without great disadvantage, quit their present habitation, and betake themselves to new ones." Clark's Observations, p. 13.

"It has been already remarked, that the tribes of the Indians, living upon the lakes and rivers that run upon the back of the English settlements in North America, are very numerous, and can furnish a great number of fighting men, all perfectly well acquainted with the use of arms as soon as capable of carrying them, as they get the whole of their subsistence from hunting; and that this army, large as it may be, can be maintained by the French without any expence, From their numbers, their situation, and the rivers that run into the English settlements, it is easy to conceive, that they can at any time make an attack upon, and constantly annoy as many of the exposed English settlements as they please, and those at any distance from each other. The effects of such incursions have been too severely felt by many of the British colonies, not to be very well known. The entire breaking up places, that had been for a considerable time settled at a great expence both of labour and money; burning the houses, destroying the flock, killing and making prisoners great numbers of the inhabitants, with all the cruel usage they meet with in their captivity, is only a part of the scene. All other places that are exposed are kept in continual terror; the lands lie waste and uncultivated, from the danger that attends those that shall presume to work upon them: besides the immense charge the governments must be at in a very ineffectual manner to defend their extended frontiers; and all this from the influence the French have had over, but comparatively, a few of the Indians. To the same or greater evils still will every one of the colonies be exposed, whenever the same influence shall be extended to the whole body of them." Ibid. p. 20.

Crown

Crown Point. While the French retain their influence over the Indians, they can easily keep our long extended frontier in continual alarm, by a very few of those people; and with a small number of regulars and militia, in such a country, we find they can keep an army of ours in full employ for several years. We therefore shall not need to be told by our colonies, that if we leave Canada, however circumscribed, to the French, ❝ we have done nothing*;" we shall soon be made sensible ourselves of this truth, and to our cost.

I would not be understood to deny, that even if we subdue and retain Canada, some few forts may be of use to secure the goods of the traders, and protect the commerce, in case of any sudden misunderstanding with any tribe of Indians: but these forts will be best under the care of the colonies interested in the Indian trade, and garrisoned by their provincial forces, and at their own expence. Their own interest will then induce the American governments to take care of such forts in proportion to their importance, and see that the officers keep their corps full, and mind their duty. But any troops of ours placed there, and accountable here, would, in such remote and obscure places, and at so great a distance from the eye and inspection of superiors, soon become of little consequence, even though the French were left in possession of Canada. "If the four independent companies, maintained by the crown in New York more than forty years, at a great expence, consisted, for most part of the time, of faggots chiefly; if their officers enjoyed their places as sinecures, and were only, as a writert of that country styles them, a

*Remarks, p. 26.

+ Douglass

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kind

kind of military monks; if this was the state of troops posted in a populous country, where the imposition could not be so well concealed; what may we expect will be the case of those, that shall be posted two, three, or four hundred miles from the inhabitants, in such obscure and remote places as Crown Point, Oswego, Duquesne, or Niagara? they would scarce be even faggots; they would dwindle to meer names upon paper, and appear no where but upon the muster-rolls.

Now all the kinds of security we have mentioned are obtained by subduing and retaining Canada. Our present possessions in America are secured; our planters will no longer be massacred by the Indians, who, depending absolutely on us for what are now become the necessaries of life to them (guns, powder, hatchets, knives, and clothing) and having no other Europeans near, that can either supply them, or instigate them against us; there is no doubt of their being always disposed, if we treat them with common justice, to live in perpetual peace with us. And with regard to France, she cannot, in case of another war, put us to the immense expence of defending that long extended frontier; we shall then, as it were, have our backs against a wall in America; the sea coast will be easily protected by our superior naval power: and here" our own watchfulness and our own strength" will be properly, and cannot but be successfully employed. In this situation, the force, now employed in that part of the world, may be spared for any other service here or elsewhere; so that both the offensive and defensive strength of the British empire, on the whole, will be greatly increased.

But to leave the French in possession of Canada, when it is in our power to remove them, and depend (as

the