Before he could get ready the first counter-blow had been struck by Georgia and South Carolina. Georgia was the weakest of all the colonies, and the part it played in this war was but trifling. She was threatened by British cruisers along the coast, and by the Tories of Florida; and there was constant danger of an uprising of the black slaves, who outnumbered the whites. The vast herds of cattle and great rice plantations of the south offered a tempting bait to every foe. Tories were numerous in the population, while there were incessant bickerings with the Creeks, frequently resulting in small local wars, brought on as often by the faithlessness and brutality of the white borderers as by the treachery and cruelty of the red. Indeed the Indians were only kept quiet by presents, it being an unhappy feature of the frontier troubles that while lawless whites could not be prevented from encroaching on the Indian lands, the Indians, in turn could only be kept at peace with the law-abiding by being bribed.[47] Only a small number of warriors invaded Georgia. Nevertheless they greatly harassed the settlers, capturing several families and fighting two or three skirmishes with varying results.[48] By the middle of July Col. Samuel Jack[49] took the field with a force of two hundred rangers, all young men, the old and infirm being left to guard the forts. The Indians fled as soon as he had embodied his troops, and towards the end of the month he marched against one or two of their small lower towns, which he burned, destroying the grain and driving off the cattle. No resistance was offered, and he did not lose a man.