several thousand gunmen well acquainted with every inch of the
province . . . their country is the key to Carolina." By a treaty
concluded at Saluda (November 24, 1753), Glen promised to build
the Cherokees a fort near the lower towns, for the protection of
themselves and their allies; and the Cherokees on their part
agreed to become the subjects of the King of Great Britain and
hold their lands under him. This fort, erected this same year on
the headwaters of the Savannah, within gunshot distance of the
important Indian town of Keowee, was named Fort Prince George.
"It is a square," says the founder of the fort (Governor Glen to
the Board of Trade, August 26, 1754), "with regular Bastions and
four Ravelins it is near Two hundred foot from Salient Angle to
Salient Angle and is made of Earth taken out of the Ditch,
secured with fachines and well rammed with a banquet on the
Inside for the men to stand upon when they fire over, the
Ravelins are made of Posts of Lightwood which is very durable,
they are ten foot in length sharp pointed three foot and a half
in the ground." The dire need for such a fort in the back country
was tragically illustrated by the sudden onslaught upon the
"House of John Gutry & James Anshers" in York County by a party
of sixty French Indians (December 16, 1754), who brutally
murdered sixteen of the twenty-one persons present, and carried
off as captives the remaining five."

At the outbreak of the French and Indian War in 1754 North
Carolina voted twelve thousand pounds for the raising of troops
and several thousand pounds additional for the construction of
forts--a sum considerably larger than that voted by Virginia. A
regiment of two hundred and fifty men was placed under the
command of Colonel James Innes of the Cape Fear section; and the