he inconsiderate projects
devised by Governor Dinwiddie.

Washington, in letters to the governor and to the speaker of the House
of Burgesses, urged the impolicy of such a plan, with their actual
force and means. The forts, he observed, ought to be within fifteen or
eighteen miles of each other, that their spies might be able to keep
watch over the intervening country, otherwise the Indians would pass
between them unperceived, effect their ravages, and escape to the
mountains, swamps and ravines before the troops from the forts could
be assembled to pursue them. They ought each to be garrisoned with
eighty or a hundred men, so as to afford detachments of sufficient
strength, without leaving the garrison too weak. It was evident,
therefore, observed he, that to garrison properly such a line of forts
would require at least two thousand men. And even then, a line of such
extent might be broken through at one end before the other end could
yield assistance. His idea of a defensive plan was to build a strong
fort at Winchester, the central point, where all the main roads met of
a wide range of scattered settlements, where tidings could soonest be
collected from every quarter, and whence reinforcements and supplies
could most readily be forwarded. It was to be a grand deposit of
military stores, a residence for commanding officers, a place of
refuge for the women and children in time of alarm, when the men had
suddenly to take the field; in a word, it was to be the citadel of the
frontier. Beside this, he would have three or four large fortresses
erected at convenient distances upon the frontiers, with powerful
garrisons, so as to be able to throw out, in constant succession,
strong scouting parties to range the country. Fort Cumberland he
condemned as being out of the province and out of the track of Indian
incursions.

His representations with respect to military laws and regulations were
equally cogent. In the late act of the Assembly for raising a regiment
it was provided that, in cases of emergency, if recruits should not
offer in sufficient number, the militia might be drafted to supply the
deficiencies, but only to serve until December, and not to be marched
out of the province. In this case, said he, before they have entered
upon service, or got the least smattering of duty, they will claim a
discharge; if they are pursuing an enemy who has committed the most
unheard-of cruelties, he has only to step across the Poto