rice and extortion in
the exaction of illegal fees, appears to have originated in political
prejudice, and that of failing to account for sums of money transmitted
by the British government, rests on the unsupported assertions of those
who were inimical to him. His place was filled for a short time by John
Blair, president of the council.

The Rev. Samuel Davies, by invitation, preached to the militia of
Hanover County, in Virginia, at a general muster, on the 8th of May,
1758, with a view to the raising a company for Captain Samuel Meredith.
In this discourse Davies said: "Need I inform you what barbarities and
depredations a mongrel race of Indian savages and French Papists have
perpetrated upon our frontiers? How many deserted or demolished houses
and plantations? How wide an extent of country abandoned? How many poor
families obliged to fly in consternation and leave their all behind
them? What breaches and separations between the nearest relations? What
painful ruptures of heart from heart? What shocking dispersions of those
once united by the strongest and most endearing ties? Some lie dead,
mangled with savage wounds, consumed to ashes with outrageous flames, or
torn and devoured by the beasts of the wilderness, while their bones lie
whitening in the sun, and serve as tragical memorials of the fatal spot
where they fell. Others have been dragged away captives, and made the
slaves of imperious and cruel savages: others have made their escape,
and live to lament their butchered or captivated friends and relations.
In short, our frontiers have been drenched with the blood of our
fellow-subjects through the length of a thousand miles, and new wounds
are still opening. We, in these inland parts of the country are as yet
unmolested, through the unmerited mercy of Heaven. But let us only
glance a thought to the western extremities of our body politic, and
what melancholy scenes open to our view! Now perhaps while I am
speaking, now while you are secure and unmolested, our fellow-subjects
there may be feeling the calamities I am now describing. Now, perhaps,
the savage shouts and whoops of Indians, and the screams and groans of
some butchered family, may be mingling their horrors and circulating
their tremendous echoes through the wilderness of rocks and
mountains."[499:A] There appears to be some resemblance between this
closing sentence and the following, in Fisher Ames' speech on the
western posts: "I can fancy that I