Pearis, proved a disastrous failure. Not a single Indian was
seen; and the party suffered extraordinary hardships and narrowly
escaped starvation.

In conformity with his treaty obligations with the Catawbas,
Governor Dobbs commissioned Captain Hugh Waddell to erect the
fort promised the Catawbas at the spot chosen by the
commissioners near the mouth of the South Fork of the Catawba
River. This fort, for which four thousand pounds had been
appropriated, was for the most part completed by midsummer, 1757.
But owing, it appears, both to the machinations of the French and
to the intermeddling of the South Carolina traders, who desired
to retain the trade of the Catawbas for that province, Oroloswa,
the Catawba King Heygler, sent a "talk" to Governor Lyttelton,
requesting that North Carolina desist from the work of
construction and that no fort be built except by South Carolina.
Accordingly, Governor Dobbs ordered Captain Waddell to discharge
the workmen (August 11, 1757); and every effort was made for many
months thereafter to conciliate the Catawbas, erstwhile friends
of North Carolina. The Catawba fort erected by North Carolina was
never fully completed; and several years later South Carolina,
having succeeded in alienating the Catawbas from North Carolina,
which colony had given them the best possible treatment, built
for them a fort at the mouth of Line Creek on the east bank of
the Catawba River.

In the spring and summer of 1758 the long expected Indian allies
arrived in Virginia, as many as four hundred by May--Cherokees,
Catawbas, Tuscaroras, and Nottaways. But Dinwiddie was wholly
unable to use them effectively; and in order to provide amusement