St. Clair undoubtedly foresaw this approaching danger, and to lay claim to it by extending civic dominion over this section on the part of Pennsylvania, was one reason for urg ing the formation of Westmoreland county. While the Penns entrusted the management of their local affairs entire ly to him, they gave him but little aid in the Virginia troubles. Dunmore saw that but for St. Clair he could easily effect a conquest. He therefore demanded of the Penns that St. Clair he delivered over to Virginia authorities. They refused this and furthrmore intimated that they would hold themselves responsible for all of St. Clair's acts. His prominence and character gave weight to his advice. He rode day and night urging the people to arm themselves for self-defense. As rapidly as possible he organized militia companies, he drilled them and personally guaranteed them pay for their assistance. These were called rangers and were posted at stations all the way from the mountains to the Ohio river. He super vised the building of a chain of blockhouses and forts along the rivers and on the Forbes Road, and supplied them at his own expense. All these matters were reported to the Penns by St. Clair, and his modest correspondence is the basis of all history yet written on the subject.
St. Clair had Connolly arrested and put in jail, but he was promptly bailed out. Later, he with a company of militia, arrested him again, meaning this time to send him in irons to Philadelphia for trial. From this purpose he was dissuaded lest it might further alienate the few Virginians in the community who were loyal to the Penns. Dunmore in sisted that St. Clair be made to ask pardon for this insult to his army, but as the latter never willingly bent his knee to a foe, it is likely that he died in old age without having obtain ed his lordship's forgiveness.
The Penns hesitated to spend money in defense of the territory for they knew not where the boundry line would fall, and they were anxious to settle it amicably. To this end the council appointed James Tilghman and Andrew Allen to con fer with the Virginia authorities. Dunmore treated these agents with contempt and the only result was to make Con nolly and his army much more oppressive than ever. Fright ened by this reign of terror, the farmers thought it not worth while to plant crops in the spring of 1774, and St. Clair was face to face with an approaching famine among those whom he had undertaken to lead to safety.
Nor were the people all united in their opposition to Dun more. Among them were hundreds of prominent families from Virginia, who, having purchased their lands from Dun more, and thinking they were settling in Virginia, were loathe to be considered as residents of Pennsylvania. The Quakers
in the east, the thriftiest people of the Province, would not help them, for they were religiously opposed to war and were opposed to the Penns whom they regarded as renegades from the religion of their revered father, for the sons had embraced the religion of the Church of England. The Quakers talked of the sinfulness of war, wore broad-brimmed hats, defied Lindly Murray and devoted themselves to the acquisition of wealth and the enjoyment of the comforts it brought. The middle counties had been settled largely by German peasants, who, having known little else than servitude in Europe, were delighted with their new enjoyment of liberty. They hated the idea of military service, for it reminded them of the op pressive armies of Germany from which they had fled. Speak ing only a German tongue, they neither knew nor cared who owned the land in the Ohio Valley, so long as they could by industry, increase their herds and widen their productive acres in peace.
Benjamin Franklin was the intellectual and political leader of the Province. Now the feudalism which had grown up among the Penns was extremely obnoxious to him, though he saw the danger of the French operations and now of the Virginia claims on the Ohio. He therefore opposed any administration measure which would add' strength to the Penns and their feudal tenure. These matters left the de fense against Virginia mostly to a divided settlement, among whom the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, the Catholics and the German Lutherans predominated, and these were equally intolerant of each other.
St. Clair's greatest difficulty was as a private citizen to hold the people together and keep the inhabitants from leaving their homes and abandoning the western section to Virginia. The pioneers were willing to endure the constant danger from Indian outbreaks but now with these new diffi culties added, the country was on the verge of being de populated.
Against all this opposition, almost single-handed, St. Clair held the settlers together, and the documentary evi dence indicates, that, but for him and his efforts, Western Pennsylvania would have been abandoned to Virginia. What the effect would have been, had this section, with its unnum bered millions of natural wealth been peopled and managed by the lassitude of the cavalier rather than by the energy of the Scotch-Irish, the reader can easily conceive. When the dark clouds of the Revolution began to gather, both Virginia and Pennsylvania forgot their personal quarrels and united in the common cause against Great Britain. At the close of the war the boundary question was settled by arbitration, which gave Pennsylvania more than the Penns at one time offered to accept.