are a great part of that time marching to and from their stations; and
they will not wait one day longer than the limited time, whether
relieved or not, however urgent the necessity for their continuance
may be." Some instances of this, and of gross misbehaviour, were then
enumerated; after which, he pressed the necessity of increasing the
number of regulars to two thousand men.

After returning from this tour, to Winchester, he gave the Lieutenant
Governor, in curious detail, a statement of the situation in which he
found the country, urging, but urging in vain, arguments which will
always be suggested by experience, against relying chiefly on militia
for defence.

Sensible of the impracticability of defending such an extensive
frontier, Colonel Washington continued to press the policy of enabling
him to act on the offensive. The people of Virginia, he thought, could
be protected only by entering the country of the enemy; giving him
employment at home, and removing the source of all their calamities by
taking possession of fort Du Quesne.

"As defensive measures," he observed in a letter to the Lieutenant
Governor, "are evidently insufficient for the security and safety of
the country, I hope no arguments are necessary to evince the necessity
of altering them to a vigorous offensive war, in order to remove the
cause." But in the event, that the assembly should still indulge their
favourite scheme of protecting the inhabitants by forts along the
frontiers, he presented a plan, which, in its execution, would require
two thousand men--these were to be distributed in twenty-two forts,
extending from the river Mayo to the Potowmac, in a line of three
hundred and sixty miles. In a letter written about the same time to