46 
THE HISTORY OF 
acted together ; though at the same time we insisted these plots should be gotten 
ready by Monday noon at farthest, when we on the part of Virginia intend- 
ed, if we were alive, to move forward without farther loss of time, the season 
being then too far advanced to admit of any unnecessary or complaisant 
delays. 
6th. We lay still this day, being Sunday, on the bank of Hico river, and 
had only prayers, our chaplain not having spirits enough to preach. The 
gentlemen of Carolina assisted not at ouf^ public devotions, because they were 
taken up all the morning in making a formidable protest against our proceed- 
ing on the line without them. "When the divine service was over, the surveyors 
set about making the plots of so much of the line as we had run this last 
campaign. Our pious friends of Carolina assisted in this work with some 
seeming scruple, pretending it was a violation of the sabbath, which we were 
the more surprised at, because it happened to be the first qualm of conscience 
they had ever been troubled with during the whole journey. They had made 
no bones of staying from prayers to hammer out an unnecessary protest, 
though divine service was no sooner over, but an unusual fit of godliness 
made them fancy that finishing the plots, which was now matter of necessity, 
was a profanation of the day. However, the expediency of losing no time, 
for us who thought it our duty to finish what we had undertaken, made such 
a labour pardonable. 
In the afternoon, Mr. Fitzw’illiain, one of the commissioners for Virginia, 
acquainted his colleagues it was his opinion, that by his majesty’s order they 
could not proceed farther on the line, but in conjunction with the commission- 
ers of Carolina ; for which reason he intended to retire, the next morning, 
with those gentlemen. This looked a little odd in our brother commissioner ; 
though, in justice to him, as well as to our Carolina friends, they stuck by us as 
long as our good liquor lasted, and were so kind to us as to drink, our good 
journey to the mountains in the last bottle we had left. 
7th. The duplicates of the plots could not be drawn fair this day before 
noon, when they were countersigned by the commissioners of each govern- 
ment. Then those of Carolina delivered their protest,- which w^as by. this 
time licked into form,' and signed by them all. And we have been so just to 
them as to set it down at full length in the Appendix, that their reasons for 
leaving us may appear in their full strength. After having thus adjusted all 
our affairs with the Carolina commissioners, and kindly supplied them with 
bread to carry them back, which they hardly deserved at our hands, we took 
leave both of them and our colleague, Mr. Fitzwilliam. This gentleman had 
still a stronger reason for hurrying him back to Williamsburg, which was, 
that neither the general court might lose an able judge, nor himself a double 
salary, not despairing in the least but he should have the whole pay of com- 
missioner into the bargain, though he did not half the work. This, to be sure, 
was relying more on the interest of his friends than on the justice of his 
cause ; in which, however, he had the misfortune to miscarry, when it came 
to be fairly considered, 
It was two o’clock in the afternoon before these arduous affairs could be 
despatched, and then, all forsaken as we were, we held on our course towards 
the west. But it was our misfortune to meet with so many thickets in this 
afternoon’s work, that we could advance no further than two miles and two 
hundred and sixty poles. In this small distance we crossed the Hico the fifth 
time, and quartered near Buffalo creek, so named from the frequent tokens 
we discovered of that American behemoth. Here the bushes were so intole- 
rably thick, that we were obliged to cover the bread bags with our deer skins, 
otherwise the joke of one of the Indians must have happened to us in good 
earnest, that in a few days we must cut up our house to make bags for our 
