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My Lords,

At present the danger seems much more to threaten North Carolina where the Indians daily gather strength, and have already besieged a Party of the Inhabitants in a small Fort they had built for their Protection. The distractions among themselves give the Indians all the opportunitys they could wish of destroying them, for as our Burgesses for their private Interest have disappointed all means of defending this Country, so those of Carolina on a worse principle have resolved to sacrifice the Province to their own private resentments, and because they cannot introduce into the Government the persons most obnoxious for the late Rebellion and Civil war, they will make no provision for defending any part of the Country, and are now likewise dissolved without doing any business. The Baron de Graffenried being obliged while he was prisoner among the Indians to conclude a neutrality for himself and the Palatines lives as yet undisturbed, but is sufficiently persecuted by the people of Carolina for not breaking with the Indians tho they will afford him neither provisions of war or victuals nor any assistance from them: he has always declared his readiness to enter into the war as soon as he should be assisted to prosecute it; but it would be madness to expose his handful of people to the fury of the Indians without some better assurance of help than the present Confusions in that Province gives him reason to hope for, since the Indians would soon either entirely destroy that settlement or starve them out of the place by killing their stocks and hindering them from planting Corn In the mean time the people of Carolina receive great advantage by this neutrality, for by that means the Baron has an opportunity of discovering to them all the designs of the Indians, tho' he runs the risque of paying dear for it, if they ever come

to know it. This makes him so apprehensive of his Danger from them, and so diffident of help or even justice from the Government under which he is that he has made some offers to remove to this Colony with the Palatines, upon some of her Majesty's lands, and since such a number of people as he may bring with him what he proposes to invite over from Switzerland and Germany will be of great advantage to this Country, and prove a strong Barrier against the Incursions of Indians if they were properly disposed above our Inhabitants, I pray your Lordships directions what encouragements ought to be given to this Design either as to the quantity of land or the terms of granting it. Your Lordships will also be pleased to instruct me as to the settlement of a great number of the other Inhabitants of North Carolina who I understand design to remove hither for protection.

I beg leave to represent to your Lordships the necessity of some speedy orders for this Colony Maryland and Carolina to assist each other in case either be attacked, and if your Lordships shall think fitt to propose this to her Majesty, I humbly offer that the regulation of that assistance may not be left to the precarious humour of an Assembly, but that your Lordships will be pleased to consider of some more proper method for rendring it effectuall. I should have sent'ere now an account of the stores of war in this Country; but considering those accounts have been transmitted both by Coll : Nott and Mr President Jenings and none other sent hither since, I thought it needless to trouble your Lordships with an account which would contain only the same thing without any alteration except as I have already intimated to your Lordships the powder is much more wasted and decayed than it was then.

Virginia Febry 18th 1711.

Recd 14th April 1712
Read 11th Decr 1712.

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