d it was in April the ensuing year, that the land adventurers
retired to Wheeling. In this interval of time, nothing could, perhaps,
be done by the Indians, but make preparation [111] for hostilities in
the spring. Indeed it very rarely happens, that the Indians engage in
active war during the winter; and there is, moreover, a strong
presumption, that they were for some time ignorant of the fact that
there were adventurers in the country; and consequently, they knew of
no object there, on which their hostile intentions could operate.--Be
this as it may, it is certain that, from the movements of the Indians
at the close of the winter, the belief was general, that they were
assuming a warlike attitude, and meditating a continuance of
hostilities. War was certainly begun on their part, when Boone and his
associates, were attacked and driven back to the settlement; and if it
abated for a season, that abatement was attributable to other causes,
than a disposition to remain quiet and peaceable, while the country
was being occupied by the whites.

If other evidence were wanting, to prove the fact that the war of 1774
had its origin in a determination of the Indians to repress the
extension of white settlements, it could be found in the circumstance,
that although it was terminated by the treaty with Lord Dunmore, yet
it revived as soon as attempts were again made to occupy Kentucky, and
was continued with increased ardour, 'till the victory obtained over
them by General Wayne. For, notwithstanding that in the struggle for
American liberty, those Indians became the allies of Great Britain,
yet when independence was acknowledged, and the English forces
withdrawn from the colonies, hostilities were still carried on by
them; and, as was then well understood, because of the continued
operation of those causes, which produced the war of 1774. That the
Canadian traders and British emissaries, prompted the Indians to
aggression, and extended to them every aid which they could, to render
that aggression more effectually oppressive and overwhelming, is
readily admitted. Yet this would not have led to a war, but for the
encroachments which have been mentioned. French influence, united to
the known jealousy of the Natives, would have been unavailingly
exerted to array the Indians against Virginia, at the commencement of
Braddock's war, but for the proceedings of the Ohio company, and the
fact that the Pennsylvania traders represented the