he stood for; besides, George profited by the easy, sagacious,
good-humored leadership of that unprincipled but common-sensible
man-of-the-world, Sir Robert Walpole, who was prime minister from 1715 to
1741, with an interval of only a couple of years. Walpole's aim was to
avoid wars and develop commerce and manufactures; and while he lived, the
colonies enjoyed immunity from conflicts with the French and Spanish.

They were not to forget the use of arms, however; for the Indians were
inevitably encroached upon by the expanding white population, and resented
it in the usual way. In 1715 the Yemasses began a massacre on the Carolina
borders; they were driven off by Charles Craven, after the colonists had
lost four hundred men. The proprietors had given no help in the war, and
after it was over, the colony renounced allegiance to them, and the
English government supported their revolt, regarding it in the light of an
act of loyalty to George. Francis Nicholson, a governor by profession, and
of great experience in that calling, was appointed royal governor, and
made peace with the tribes; and in 1729 the crown bought out the claims of
the proprietors. North Carolina, without a revolt, enjoyed the benefits
obtained by their southern brethren. The Cherokees became a buffer against
the encroachments of the French from the west.

In the north, meanwhile, the Abenakis, in sympathy with the French,
claimed the region between the Kennebec and the St. Croix, and applied to
the French for assistance. Sebastian Rasles, a saintly Jesuit priest and
Indian missionary, had made his abode at Norridgwock on the Kennebec; he
was regarded by Massachusetts as an instigator of the enemy. They seized
his post, he escaping for the time; the Indians burned Brunswick; but in
1723 Westbrooke with a company of hardy provincials, who knew more of
Indian warfare than the Indians themselves, attacked an Indian fort near
the present Bangor and destroyed it; the next year Norridgwock was