our history. Yet I have thought it right to show that it occurred, singularly enough, just at the epoch of the wars of 1774 and of the revolution, and was probably considered as a means of exciting enmity and disaffection betwixt Virginians and Pennsylvanians, of loosening the links between two vast territorial empires, and thus of weakening the sympathetic bond which should have bound all Americans

would soon reduce the refractory people of this Colony to obedience." State Paper office, London: Virginia, vol. CXCV. See also Sabine's Loyalists, article, John Connolly.

The original papers relative to the arrest of Connolly and his incendiary companions in Maryland in 1775 are recorded in the MS. Journal of the Committee of Observation of the Middle District of Frederick County, under date of the 21 Nov., 1775, in the possession of the Maryland Historical Society. This record gives, 1st, The letter from John Connolly to John Gibson, dated at Portsmouth, Aug. 9, 1775: 2d, A letter from Lord Dunmore to the Indian Capt. White Eyes. It contains a loving message to "his brother" The Cornstalk (the same who had fought at Pt. Pleasant): 3d, Proposals to General Gage for raising an army to the westward for the purpose of effectually obstructing a communication between the southern and northern governments.

One of the chief proposals was to raise the Indians. See Letters from Arthur St. Clair to Gov. Penn, Ligonier, 29 May, 1774, Am. Arch., 4th series, vol. I, p. 287.

at that critical moment. The fatal quarrel with Great Britain had already begun, and all the chief provinces from Massachusetts southward, were rallying in the general national cause with a firmness that betokened danger to the dominion of the parent state unless our liberties were left untouched.

But there is a third motive for this war which we admit is not altogether proved against the British earl, although there are facts that strongly fortify the belief entertained on the subject by early American writers and soldiers who served in the campaign. Among all the authors and journalists of the war there is evidently a strong impression, amounting almost to positive conviction, that Connolly, as the tool of Dunmore, secretly fomented the war with ulterior views, as a counter irritation against the menaced resistance to England. Those who lived nearest the scene of action, and especially the Virginians who had the best means of judging Dunmore's motives, believed from circumstances that transpired during the conflict, that the Indians were urged to a war

by the instigation of emissaries from Great Britain and by the Canadian traders. It was generally credited that Dunmore had received from England advices concerning the approaching contest, and that all his measures with the Indians had for their ultimate object an alliance of foreign troops and loyalists with the ferocious warriors against the Americans. Nothing, indeed, was more natural than for British politicians at home to suppose that the excitement of an Indian war, and a contemporary dissension between the people of two large provinces in America, would be the means of preventing a colonial coalition in opposition to parliamentary taxation. But, fortunately for our liberties,

1

1 Burk's Hist. Virg., vol. III, p. 380; Withers's Chronicles, p. 107; Dr. Doddridge's account of Dunmore's war in Kercheval (edition of 1833), p. 157; Rev. Mr. Jacob's Life of Cresap, pp. 47, 52, 53, 67; Col. Stuart's Memoir of the Indian Wars, printed by the Virginia Historical Society, pp. 41, 43, 49, 56; Howison's History Virginia, vol. II, p. 72; Hildreth's History U. States, vol. III, p. 49; Monette's History Valley of the Mississippi, vol. I, p. 385; Virginia Historical Register, vol. I, p. 32, in Col. Andrew Lewis's letter; Annals of the West; Ohio Historical Collections, by Howe, p. 408; Almon's Remembrancer, vol. II, pp. 218, 330;

the alarm of an Indian war neither palsied nor benumbed the masses. And although Pennsylvania did not contribute largely to its suppression, it was not until the military ardor and indignation of the people throughout Virginia blazed up in the colony and reacted on Dunmore, that he affected, at least, to feel a hectic glow of virtuous indignation, and placed himself at the head of the troops that gathered from every glen and mountain to repel the savage.1

Smyth's Travels in America, Dublin, 1784. As to Dunmore's supposed treachery see Am. Arch., 4th series, vol. III, pp. 1191, 1192, for some strong suspicions on this point from facts that became known after the treaty of Camp Charlotte and the close of the campaign.

1 Burk, vol. III, p. 381. The Pennsylvania authorities took precautions soon after the outbreak of troubles to signify to the Indians, by messengers, that the alleged outrages were not committed by Pennsylvanians, and that the government of Pennsylvania disavowed and condemned them, and therefore were not proper objects of revenge. This timely notice is probably the reason why the Indian war was not carried on against the frontier settlements of Pennsylvania, but was chiefly directed against those of Virginia, where all kinds of savage barbarities were inflicted. See Gordon's History of Pennsylvania, p. 475; Monette's Valley of the Mississippi, vol. I, p. 371. See also Drake's Book of the Indians, book v, p. 45, for some sound reasoning on Dunmore's conduct.

It will be perceived, therefore, that there were three probable causes or motives for the war which broke out in 1774, the leading events of which I will narrate very briefly.

I. The hostility of the Indians had been constantly manifested in the most murderous and predatory manner ever since Bouquet's peace in 1764; and, at the same time, the gradual enlargement of the white settlements had brought, in perilous neighborhood, two races who were naturally hostile, while neither the savages of the one, nor the hardy woodsmen of the other, were prepared, by continuous forbearance, to avoid conflict or to unite in a common tenure of the soil.

II. The Pennsylvania disputes with Virginia as to territorial limits and jurisdiction were unwisely fomented by the forcible acts of Dunmore and Connolly, and thus the comity and good-will between two of the most important colonies were fearfully endangered.

III. It was probably Lord Dunmore's desire to incite a war which would arouse and band

the savages of the west, so that, in the antici