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They, on the 19th, were pleased to send me this polite Answer:
"May it please your Excellency, We cannot help expressing our
Surprise, that you should recommend it to the Agents, to order a
Supply of Provisions to a Garrison at Fort Cumberland. Had they
in their Hands ever so much of the Money appropriated by the Act
of Assembly passed last Session, they undoubtedly would not have
laid out any of it in Supplies to a Garrison, stationed contrary to the
plain Destination of all the Forces raised and to be supported by that
Law. And if any evil Consequences have heretofore or may here-
after follow a Want of such Supplies, let those Answer for them
who have, contrary to Law, been the Means of stationing Troops
where they had no Authority to place them, and for Want of whose
Service, on the Duty assigned them by Law, the Frontier Inhabitants
of this Province have been exposed to the Incursions of their cruel
and savage Enemies."
By Way of Reply to this Address, and to enforce my Message of
the 15th, I, on the 21st, sent the House the following:
"Gentlemen, I know not how great your Surprize may be at my
recommending it to the Agents to send a fresh Supply of Provisions
to the Troops at Fort Cumberland; but I assure you mine would
have been very great if they had urged any Thing but the Want
of Money in Excuse for not having immediately complied with my
Request. The Agents Accounts will, I suppose, shew you, that they
have hitherto furnished those Troops with Provisions; and they
will, I presume, if called upon, inform you that they have been well
advised the Law made it their Duty to supply them so long as any
of the Money, which was appropriated by the Act passed last Session,
remained unexpended. I am sorry you should question the Earl of
Loudoun's Authority to place in Fort Cumberland any of the Men
that were raised here, in Consequence of his Requisition: I am satis-
fied that this Lordship was by his Majesty's Commission, as well
as by our Act of Assembly, impowered to do so; and however
it may become you, I do not think it was my Duty to declare, that
they should not be employed in such a Manner as the Commander
in Chief of all his Majesty's Forces in America though most con-
ducive to his Majesty's Service. As it is notorious that while Num-
bers of People have been cut off in the Two Neighbouring Prov-
inces, we have only lost Two or Three Persons at most, exclusive
of Soldiers and their Attendants, and that our People owe their
Preservation in great Measure to the Disposition that the Earl of
Loudoun was pleased to make of our Forces, I am surprized at your
saying that for Want of their Service, the Frontier Inhabitants have
been exposed to the Incursions of their cruel and savage Enemies:
But if you complain so grievously of the Earl of Loudoun's having
orderde a Part of our Troops to Garrison a Fort within the Prov-
ince, What Answer might his Lordship have expected, if, when
16
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L. H. J.
Liber No. 52
April 23
p. 71
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