and. No troops
could be furnished from that quarter. The garrison was scarcely strong
enough for self-defence, having sent out detachments in different
directions.

Horrors accumulated at Winchester. Every hour brought its tale of
terror, true or false, of houses burnt, families massacred, or
beleaguered and famishing in stockaded forts. The danger approached. A
scouting party had been attacked in the Warm Spring Mountain, about
twenty miles distant, by a large body of French and Indians, mostly on
horseback. The captain of the scouting party and several of his men
had been slain, and the rest put to flight. An attack was apprehended,
and the terrors of the people rose to agony. They now turned to
Washington as their main hope. The women surrounded him, holding up
their children and imploring him with tears and cries to save them
from the savages. The youthful commander looked round on the suppliant
crowd with a countenance beaming with pity and a heart wrung with
anguish. A letter to Governor Dinwiddie drew from him an instant order
for a militia force from the upper counties to his assistance; but the
Virginia newspapers, in descanting on the frontier troubles, threw
discredit on the army and its officers, and attached blame to its
commander. Stung to the quick by this injustice, Washington publicly
declared that nothing but the imminent danger of the times prevented
him from instantly resigning a command from which he could never reap
either honor or benefit. His sensitiveness called forth strong letters
from his friends, assuring him of the high sense entertained at the
seat of government, and elsewhere, of his merits and services.

In fact, the situation and services of the youthful commander, shut up
in a frontier town, destitute of forces, surrounded by savage foes,
gallantly, though despairingly, devoting himself to the safety of a
suffering people, were properly understood throughout the country, and
excited a glow of enthusiasm in his favor. The Legislature, too, began
at length to act, but timidly and inefficiently. Its measure of relief
was an additional appropriation of twenty thousand pounds, and an
increase of the provincial force to fifteen hundred men. With this, it
was proposed to erect and garrison a chain of frontier forts,
extending through the ranges of the Alleghany Mountains, from the
Potomac to the borders of North Carolina; a distance of between three
and four hundred miles. This was one of t