In that company did Nicholson perhaps recall that a quarter-century earlier his [Barnwell] had been one of the first voices raised to warn Englishmen of the danger of French encirclement? Before the Board of Trade in August, 1720, Barnwell and Boone presented the essence of their program, proposing to check French aggression by imitating the most striking feature of their policy. 'The Method of the French,' they recalled, 'is to build Forts on their Frontiers which it wou'd be our Interest to do likewise, not only to preserve Our Trade with the Indians and their Dependance upon Us, but to preserve our Boundaries.' They also confirmed the most alarming item in the recent report of the assembly, 'that the French particularly pretend a Right to the River May [Altamaha].' 'Therefore,' they urged, 'it wou'd be more immediately necessary for Us to possess ourselves of the Mouth of that River.'77 [Note 77 JBT, August 16, 1720.] These proposals, with supporting arguments, were elaborated in a series of documents which the Carolina agents now filed with the Board of Trade and Secretary Townshend. They, too, prepared a set of answers to the Board's queries of 1719. 78 [Note 78 c.o. 5 :358, A 7, 8; presented August 23 (see JBT), along with 'An Account of the proper places fit for Garrisons in Carolina and the absolute necessity of doing the same speedily' (ibid., A 8); a table of distances between the proposed forts (A 9) ; and Thomas Smith's 'A Description of Pansecola, Mobile and the Mississippi River,' dated February 22, 1719/20 (A 10), also in C.O. 5 :12, no. 1. The latter, based on reports of Captain Byrchall and Mr. Owen, who had recently arrived overland from the West at Smith's plantation, gave considerable detail of the French possessions on the Gulf and Mississippi. See also Historical MSS Commission, Eleventh Report, Appendix, part IV, PP. 254-6, for other copies in the Townshend MSS.] In these they set forth, more clearly than elsewhere appears, the basis of the western claims of Carolina, first, the charters, secondly, and particularly, the Indian alliances. For further definition, they referred to Nairne's map. The Carolinians, it appears, still claimed the whole Indian country from the Cherokee nation westward along the Tennessee to the Mississippi, the Gulf coast from Apalache Bay nearly to Pensacola, and the lands of the Creeks and the Chickasaw. To recover these rightful boundaries and to check further encroachments upon his Majesty's domains, as well as to hold the Indian trade, they specified six or seven strategic locations in the South which should now be fortified. Port Royal should be made a port of entry and the magazine of supply for the whole southern frontier. At Savannah Town should be built a stone or brick fort to guard 'the ordinary thorowfare to the Westward Indians.' A similar fort was needed at Palachacola Town. But the most urgent requirement of anti-French defence was the fortification of the mouth of the Altamaha. Westward, a post on the Chattahoochee at the crossing of the trading-path would support English influence among the Lower Creeks. If possible the French should be compelled to surrender Fort Toulouse as a usurpation; otherwise, it would be weIl to build another post upon the Tennessee River, 'by means whereof we may interrupt the communication between the French of Mississippi, and those of Canada, and prevent them from gaining the Cherokees.' This, obviously, was a reversion to the Nairne project of 1707-1708. With emphasis they insisted that the Indian trade was not the only interest that would be served. The province, they declared, carried on the trade with the French Indians at a loss, 'yet they are under a necessity of supporting it, for their own preservation.' Once more the 'next war' with its anticipated horrors was predicted. 'As Carolina is the South west Frontier to the rest of the Collonys and by its Situation has a more easy Communication with the Indians, it must be there that care must be taken; a penny now laid out may save pounds hereafter and enable us in time of War, even to dispossess the French.' The Carolinian scheme for frontier posts was elaborated only for the Southwest, but it was applicable to the whole continental frontier. Other memoranda indicate that Barnwell expected the Altamaha Fort and the others projected to become centres of settlement as well as defense, and that the project was considered adaptable to Nova Scotia, to Virginia, and to that maritime frontier, the Bahamas, as well as to Carolina. To prevent the engrossing of the soil by 'the several Proprietors pretending to them by Charters,' Barnwell suggested that lands immediately adjacent to the forts should be reserved for the support of officers and troops, or granted under tenure of castle-guard, without quit-rents, to attract traders and planters who would assist in defense. 79 [Note 79 c.o. 5 :358, A 11 (enclosure).] In another memorial he strongly urged a conference of governors to adjust the long-standing trade rivalry between Virginia and South Carolina. This might well prove fatal to both in face of French aggression. Virginia, he added, was now in a better situation than ever before to aid, out of her own treasury, a plan for securing her frontiers along with those of Carolina.80 [Note 80 c.o.] How strong an impression Barnwell and his colleagues had made was soon evident. Within exactly a week from the presentation of the scheme for frontier forts it was endorsed almost verbatim by the Board of Trade to the Lords Justices;81 this action approached a record for celerity in Whitehall. [Note 81 See Delafaye to Board of Trade, August 18, 1720, directing the Board to hasten the report 'of what is further necessary to be done for the safety' of Carolina (C.O. 5 :358, A 7).] But the Board of Trade was now thoroughly aroused. There was truth as well as flattery in the agents' reply to the stereotyped query, 'What Effect have the French settlements on the Continent of America upon his Majesties Plantations?' 'The effects,' they wrote, 'are better known to your Lordships than to any body of Men whatsoever.'82 [Note 82 C.O.] That Barnwell's scheme was avowedly an imitation of the grand French design was probably not its least merit in the view of Whitehall. Along with fear that their rivals might realize the imputed ambition to achieve 'an Universal Empire in America,' went a very wholesome respect for supposed French efficiency, in frontier management as well as in centralized colonial control.