Meantime, Colonel Waddell with his force of five hundred North
Carolinians had acted in concert with Colonel William Byrd,
commanding the Virginia detachment. The combined forces went into
camp at Captain Samuel Stalnaker's old place on the Middle Fork
of Holston. Because of his deliberately dilatory policy, Byrd was
superseded in the command by Colonel Adam Stephen. Marching their
forces to the Long Island of Holston, Stephen and Waddell erected
there Fort Robinson, in compliance with the instructions of
Governor Fauquier, of Virginia. The Cherokees, heartily tired of
the war, now sued for peace, which was concluded, independent of
the treaty at Charleston, on November 19, 1761.

The successful termination of this campaign had an effect of
signal importance in the development of the expansionist spirit.
The rich and beautiful lands which fell under the eye of the
North Carolina and Virginia pioneers under Waddell, Byrd, and
Stephen, lured them irresistibly on to wider casts for fortune
and bolder explorations into the unknown, beckoning West.



CHAPTER VII. The Land Companies

It was thought good policy to settle those lands as fast as
possible, and that the granting them to men of the first
consequence who were likeliest and best able to procure large
bodies of people to settle on them was the most probable means of
effecting the end proposed.--Acting-Governor Nelson of Virginia
to the Earl of Hillsborough: 1770.