On May 25, 1756, a conference was held at Salisbury between King Heygler and warriors of the Catawba nation on the one side and Chief Justice Henley, doubtless attended by Captain Waddell and his frontier company, on the other. King Heygler, following the lead set by the Cherokees, petitioned the Governor of North Carolina to send the Catawbas some ammunition and to "build us a fort for securing our old men, women and children when we turn out to fight the Enemy on their coming." The chief justice assured the King that the Catawbas would receive a necessary supply of ammunition (one hundred pounds of gunpowder and four hundred pounds of lead were later sent them) and promised to urge with the governor their request to have a fort built as soon as possible. Pathos not unmixed with dry humor tinges the eloquent appeal of good old King Heygler, ever the loyal friend of the whites, at this conference: I desire a stop may be put to the selling of strong Liquors by the White people to my people especially near the Indian nation. If the White people make strong drink, let them sell it to one another, or drink it in their own families. This will avoid a great deal of mischief which otherwise will happen from my people getting drunk and quarrelling with the White people. I have no strong prisons like you to confine them for it. Our only way is to put them under ground and all these (pointing proudly to his Warriors) will be ready to do that to those who shall deserve it. [43] In response to this request, the sum of four thousand pounds was appropriated by the North Carolina Assembly for the erection of "a Fort on our western frontier to protect and secure the Catawbas" and for the support of two companies of fifty men each to garrison this and another fort building on the sea coast. The commissioners appointed for the purpose recommended (December 21, 1756) a site for the fort "near the Catawba nation"; and on January 20, 1757, Governor Dobbs reported: "We are now building a Fort in the midst of their towns at their own Request." The fort thereupon begun must have stood near the mouth of the South Fork of the Catawba River, as Dobbs says it was in the "midst" of their towns, which are situated a "few miles north and south of 38°" and might properly be included within a circle of thirty miles radius. [44] During the succeeding months many depredations were committed by the Indians upon the exposed and scattered settlements. Had it not been for the protection afforded by all these forts, by the militia companies under Alexander Osborne of Rowan and Nathaniel Alexander of Anson, and by a special company of patrollers under Green and Moore, the back settlers who had been so outrageously "pilfered" by the Indians would have "retired from the Frontier into the inner settlements." [45] CHAPTER V. In Defense of Civilization