eving them with
impunity, be open before them. In the then situation of our country,
this prospect was soon presented to them.

The contest between Great Britain and her American colonies, which had
been for some time carried on with increasing warmth, was ripening
rapidly into war. The events of every day, more and more confirmed the
belief, that the "_unconditional submission_" of the colonies, was the
object of the parent state; and that to accomplish this, she was [140]
prepared to desolate the country by a civil war, and imbrue her hands
in the blood of its citizens. This state of things the Indians knew,
would favor the consummation of their hopes. Virginia, having to apply
her physical strength to the repulsion of other enemies, could not be
expected to extend her protecting aegis over the remote and isolated
settlements on her borders. These would have to depend on themselves
alone, for resistance to ruthless irruption, and exemption from total
annihilation. The Indians well knew the weakness of those settlements,
and their consequent incapacity to vie in open conflict with the
overwhelming force of their savage foes; and their heriditary
resentment to the whites prompted them to take advantage of that
weakness, to wreak this resentment, and involve them once more in
hostilities.

Other circumstances too, combined in their operation, to produce this
result. The plan of Lord Dunmore and others, to induce the Indians to
co-operate with the English in reducing Virginia to subjection, and
defeated by the detection and apprehension of Connoly, was soon after
resumed on a more extensive scale. British agents were busily engaged
from Canada to the Gulph of Mexico, in endeavoring by immediate
presents and the promise of future reward, to excite the savages to a
war upon the western frontiers. To accomplish this object, no means
which were likely to be of any avail, were neglected to be used.
Gratified resentment and the certainty of plunder, were held up to
view as present consequences of this measure; and the expulsion of the
whites, and the repossession, by the Natives, of the country from
which their fathers had been ejected, as its ultimate result.--Less
cogent motives might have enlisted them on the side of Great Britain.
These were too strong to be resisted by them, and too powerful to be
counteracted by any course of conduct, which the colonies could
observe towards them; and they became ensnared by the delusiv