230 The Winning of the West 



were arrogant and overbearing, and yet alarmed at 

 the continual advance of the whites. The head- 

 strong rashness of Conolly, who was acting as Lord 

 Dunmore's lieutenant on the border, and who was 

 equally willing to plunge into a war with Pennsyl- 

 vania or the Shawnees, served as a firebrand to 

 ignite this mass of tinder. The borderers were 

 anxious for a war; and Lord Dunmore was not 

 inclined to balk them. He was ambitious of glory, 

 and probably thought that in the midst of the grow- 

 ing difficulties between the mother country and the 

 colonies, it would be good policy to distract the 

 Virginians' minds by an Indian war, which, if he 

 conducted it to a successful conclusion, might 

 strengthen his own position. 16 



16 Many local historians, including Brantz Mayer (Logan 

 and Cresap, p. 85), ascribe to the earl treacherous motives. 

 Brantz Mayer puts it thus: "It was probably Lord Dun- 

 more's desire to incite a war which would arouse and band 

 the savages of the West, so that in the anticipated struggle 

 with the united colonies the British home-interest might 

 ultimately avail itself of these children of the forest as fero- 

 cious and formidable allies in the onslaught on the Ameri- 

 cans." This is much too futile a theory to need serious 

 discussion. The war was of the greatest advantage to the 

 American cause ; for it kept the Northwestern Indians off our 

 hands for the first two years of the Revolutionary struggle ; 

 and had Lord Dunmore been the far-seeing and malignant 

 being that this theory supposes, it would have been impos- 

 sible for him not also to foresee that such a result was abso- 

 lutely inevitable. There is no reason whatever to suppose 

 that he was not doing his best for the Virginians ; he de- 

 served their gratitude; and he got it for the time being. 

 The accusations of treachery against him were after- 

 thoughts, and must be set down to mere vulgar rancor, un- 



