The fatal consequences of the unfortunate Braddock's defeat were rapidly developed in the southwestern frontiers. The French were aroused by success to an unusual spirit of enterprise, and, together with the Indians, they carried destruction into the remote and scattered hamlets of the British settlements. To put an end to these depredations, the government of Virginia marched 500 men to garrison Fort Cumberland, and 160 more to the southern branch of the Potomac, lately the scene of a cruel massacre. But these isolated efforts were of little more than local and temporary advantage; as the marauders were checked or baffled in one district, they poured with increased ferocity upon another. The province of Pennsylvania now became their foray-ground; and the inhabitants, the faithful but fanatic men of peace, actually denied all assistance to their governor for defense, and zealously preached against any warlike preparations, recommending patience and forbearance as the best means of securing their properties and lives.
This fatal delusion was not even dispelled by the intelligence that 1400 Indians and 100 French were already mustered on the banks of the Susquehanna, only eighty miles from Philadelphia, with the object of again dividing and sweeping the whole country in separate parties. Soon after, news arrived that the peaceful and prosperous settlement of Great Cove was utterly destroyed, and all the inhabitants massacred or carried into captivity. Still the men of peace refused to use the arm of flesh. The spirited governor in vain urged the necessity of action upon his unmanageable Assembly, till the sudden arrival of some hundreds of ruined fugitives strengthened his argument. These unfortunates crowded to the State House, dragging a wagon loaded with the dead and mutilated bodies of their friends, who had been scalped by the Indians at a place only sixty miles distant; they threw the bleeding corpses at the door, and threatened violence if their demands for protection and revenge were not instantly complied with. The Assembly, either moved by their distress, or overawed by their menaces, at length gave up its scruples, and passed a bill to call out the militia and appropriate £62,000 to the expenses of the war.