ferent war-parties in the field at once, always accompanied by
Frenchmen. Thus far, we have lost only two officers and a few soldiers;
but the Indian villages are full of prisoners of every age and sex. The
enemy has lost far more since the battle than on the day of his
defeat."[332]

[Footnote 332: _Dumas au Ministre, 24 Juillet, 1756._]

Dumas, required by the orders of his superiors to wage a detestable
warfare against helpless settlers and their families, did what he could
to temper its horrors, and enjoined the officers who went with the
Indians to spare no effort to prevent them from torturing
prisoners.[333] The attempt should be set down to his honor; but it did
not avail much. In the record of cruelties committed this year on the
borders, we find repeated instances of children scalped alive. "They
kill all they meet," writes a French priest; "and after having abused
the women and maidens, they slaughter or burn them."[334]

[Footnote 333: _Memoires de Famille de l'Abbe Casgrain_, cited in _Le
Foyer Canadien,_ III. 26, where an extract is given from an order of
Dumas to Baby, a Canadian officer. Orders of Contrecoeur and Ligneris to
the same effect are also given. A similar order, signed by Dumas, was
found in the pocket of Douville, an officer killed by the English on the
Frontier. _Writings of Washington_, II. 137, _note_.]

[Footnote 334: _Rec. Claude Godefroy Cocquard, S.J., a son Frere, Mars
(?)_, 1757.]

Washington was now in command of the Virginia regiment, consisting of a
thousand men, raised afterwards to fifteen hundred. With these he was to
protect a frontier of three hundred and fifty miles against more
numerous enemies, who could choose their time and place of attack. His
headquarters were at Winchester. His men were an ungovernable crew,
enlisted chiefly on the turbulent border, and resenting every kind of
discipline as levelling them with negroes; while the sympathizing House
of Burgesses hesitated for months to pass any law for enforcing
obedience, lest it should trench on the liberties of free white men. The
service was to the last degree unpopular. "If we talk of obliging men to
serve their country," wrote London Carter, "we are sure to hear a fellow
mumble over the words 'liberty' and 'property' a thousand times."[335]
The people, too, were in mortal fear of a slave insurrection, and
therefore dared not go far from home.[336] Meanwhile a panic reigned
along the border. Captain Waggoner,