"the next matter i shall recommend to you is the providing more effectively for the security of your frontiers against [american] indians, who notwithstanding the many parties of rangers [militia, or local men who volunteered for colonial defense] have. . . Killed and carried off at least twenty of our outward inhabitants and indian allies; i have attempted by several ways to oppose those [invasions] but after some trouble and expense have only experienced that our people are not ready for warlike undertakings. . . . The [condition of our indian allies has] of late approved themselves to be ready and faithfully allied, and i am persuaded that setting them along our frontiers without all our inhabitants. . . Would be a better and cheaper safeguard to the country than the old method of rangers. "