Thus on the immediate border of South Carolina, the Port Royal-Savannah River line was reestablished. In the Indian country, beyond, other frontier forts were from time to time proposed to support the Carolina traders and to offset the 'encroachments' of the Spanish and French. In 1720 John Barnwell persuaded the Board of Trade to endorse an ambitious scheme for distant royal posts throughout the southern Indian country, and in 1721, as the first step in this policy, Fort King George was built for the Crown at the mouth of the Altamaha. 11 But the province was too poor, and the colonial authorities at home too indifferent, to complete the program. Nevertheless these suggestions in the period immediately preceding 1730 were significant of a provincial interest in southwestward expansion which had a more than casual relation to the colonization of Georgia.