Excerpt from The Official Letters of Alexander Spotswood, Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony of Virginia, 1710-1722, Vol. 2: Now First Printed From the Manuscript in the Collections of the Virginia Historical Society The Militia of this Colony is perfectly useless without Arms or amunition, and by an unaccountable infatuation, no arguments Ihave used can prevail on these people to make their Militia more Serviceable. Or to fall into any other measures for the Defence of their Country. The fear of Enemys by Sea, (except that of pyrates, ) are now happily removed by the peace, (which if on no other acc't than that alone, ) ought to be received here as the greatest and most valuable blessing; but the'insurrec tions of our own Negroes, or the Invasions of the Indians, are no less to be dreaded, while the people are so stupidly averse to the only means they have left to protect themselves Against either of these Events. I shall, for my own part, take all the care I am capable of (under these disadvantages) for the safety of her Ma'tie's Subjects, and still endeav'r to testify to yo'r Lord'ps, that I am, with due respect. February I I, 1712 [17 To t/ze Lords Proprietors of Carolina. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.