feet on a side, enclosing
the principal buildings of the settlement; and the gateway was
guarded by an observation tower. The other defense was a stockade
embracing eight houses at the mill some distance away, around
which a small settlement had sprung up.

During the same year the fort planned by Dobbs was erected upon
the site he had chosen--between Third and Fourth creeks; and the
commissioners Richard Caswell and Francis Brown, sent out to
inspect the fort, made the following picturesque report to the
Assembly (December 21, 1756):

"That they had likewise viewed the State of Fort Dobbs, and found
it to be a good and Substantial Building of the Dimentions
following (that is to say) The Oblong Square fifty three feet by
forty, the opposite Angles Twenty four feet and Twenty-Two In
Height Twenty four and a half feet as by the Plan annexed
Appears, The Thickness of the Walls which are made of Oak Logs
regularly Diminished from sixteen Inches to Six, it contains
three floors and there may be discharged from each floor at one
and the same time about one hundred Musketts the same is
beautifully scituated in the fork of Fourth Creek a Branch of the
Yadkin River. And that they also found under Command of Cap' Hugh
Waddel Forty six Effective men Officers and Soldiers, the said
Officers and Soldiers Appearing well and in good Spirits."

As to the erection of a fort on the Tennessee, promised the
Cherokees by South Carolina, difficulties between the governor of
that province and of Virginia in regard to matters of policy and
the proportionate share of expenses made effective cooperation
between the two colonies well-nigh impossible. Glen, as we have
seen, had resented Dinwiddie's efforts to win the South Carolina
Indians over to Virginia's interest. And Dinwiddie had been very
indignant when the force promised him by the Indians to aid
General Braddock did not arrive, attributing this defection in
part to Glen's negotiations for a meeting with the chieftains and
in part to the influence of the South Carolina traders, who kept
the Indians away by hiring them to go on long hunts for furs and
skinns. But there was no such contention between Virginia and
North Carolina. Dinwiddie and Dobbs arranged (November 6, 1755)
to send a commission from these colonies to treat with the
Cherokees and the Catawbas. Virginia sent two commissioners,
Colonel William Byrd, third of that name, and Colonel Peter
Randolph; while North Carolina