prove this detestable Act productive of the most direful mischief, not only to the children, but to the mother island. For my own part, whatever the event may be, I comfort myself with the reflection, that every thing here below is subject to the control of irresistible power, directed by unerring wisdom and infinite goodness, &c. &c.
- To the Honorable Philip Ludwell.
Honorable Sir:—However misbecoming it may in general be thought, in such as act only in a private station, to intermeddle in affairs of a public nature; yet when our country is in danger, to ward that danger off seems to be an object of common concern. Hence, I trust, any member of the community will be deemed pardonable, at least, in showing a readiness to forward the accomplishment of that desirable end. With this view then, I am about to take the freedom to offer to your Honor's consideration some few particulars with which, peradventure, the great distance between Williamsburg and those parts of the country which are most immediately affected by them, may have prevented some gentlemen, who share in the administration, from being so thoroughly acquainted, as, it is conceived, public utility, requires they should.
Not to mention the repeated acts of hostility and violence committed, on our fellow-subjects in the remoter parts of the Colony, by those bloody instruments of French policy, the Indians; nor the great extent of country on both sides the Alleghanies, now almost totally depopulated by them, which are facts long since notorious to all; I beg leave to in-
