The people of Virginia, he thought, could be protected only by entering the country of the enemy; giving him employment at home, and removing the source of all their calamities by taking possession of fort Du Quesne.
"As defensive measures," he observed in a letter to the Lieutenant Governor, "are evidently insufficient for the security and safety of the country, I hope no arguments are necessary to evince the necessity of altering them to a vigorous offensive war, in order to remove the cause." But in the event, that the assembly should still indulge their favourite scheme of protecting the inhabitants by forts along the frontiers, he presented a plan, which, in its execution, would require two thousand men--these were to be distributed in twenty-two forts, extending from the river Mayo to the Potowmac, in a line of three hundred and sixty miles.

In a letter written about the same time to the speaker of the assembly, he said, "The certainty of advantage, by an offensive scheme of action, renders it, beyond any doubt, preferable to our defensive measures.

Our scattered force, so separated and dispersed in weak parties, avails little to stop the secret incursions of the savages.

We can only perhaps put them to flight, or frighten them to some other part of the country, which answers not the end proposed.

Whereas, had we strength enough to invade their lands, we should restrain them from coming abroad, and leaving their families exposed.