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L.H.J.
Liber No. 50
May 5
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proportionable Number of Officers, were at Fort Frederick, and the
Rest, or most of them, were, by the especial Order of his Majesty's
General, in Garrison at Fort Cumberland, or otherwise employed in
that distant Part of the Province, in such Manner as Captain Dag-
worthy thought best for the Security of the Inhabitants, and to annoy
the Enemy.
You have not, I presume, forgot, that on the 7th of last December,
I informed you, that many Difficulties had been purposely thrown in
the Way of Mr. Ross, the Agent Victualler, by a Member of your
House, to prevent the Garrison of Fort Cumberland being supplied
with Provisions; it happened, that that Member's Endeavours did
not succeed so far as to force the Troops to abandon that Place for
Want of Food, but they laid the Commanding Officer at Fort Fred-
erick under the Necessity of sending several Parties to Fort Cumber-
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p. 168
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land, the latter End of December, and in the Month of January, to
convoy up Provisions for the Use of that Garrison during the
Winter.
Such, Gentlemen, was the State and Number of our Forces the
9th of December last, and such the Service, that, almost naked as
they were, those of them that Capt. Beall had the immediate Com-
mand of, were obliged to perform in the Middle of Winter; let us
next examine what Encouragement they had to perform it, and how
far they could be considered at that Time in the Pay of the Province.
On the 15th of October last, Mr. Murdock and Mr. Dick, two of
the Agents that were appointed to cloath, pay, and victual them,
informed me by a Letter, that they had examined their Books, and
found that the Money which had been appropriated for the Support
of the Troops, which were then employed in the Service of this Prov-
ince, was entirely expended; and I since find, that it had been ex-
pended a Week before the Gentlemen gave me that Notice, or at least,
that no Pay has been issued to any of the abovementioned Troops,
for their Service, since the 8th Day of October. You did indeed
frame a Bill, after that Time, for keeping up 300 of the Men for the
immediate Defence of the Frontier Inhabitants, but it was such a
One as the Earl of Loudoun thought the Gentlemen of the Upper
House did very wisely in rejecting, though there had been nothing
else exceptionable in it, than what related to the Disposition or Dis-
tribution of the Men, for whose Support it was intended to provide.
The Bill was, I think, returned to your House with a Negative, the
First of December, and although the Assembly sat till the Sixteenth
of that Month, nothing farther was done for the Support of our
Troops, or that could afford them any Prospect of being paid;
neither did you any Thing which could justify me, in giving the
Party of Cherokees, that had just before offered us their Services,
the least Encouragement to continue on our Frontiers; on the con-
trary, when I intreated you to appropriate to their Use, Part of the
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