It is to be hoped that the desultory sketch furnished above will not be found uninteresting despite its imperfections. Many details have been omitted or neglected, but enough has been written to illustrate in a general way the qualities for which our ancestors were most distinguished, for which their characters have excited most comment and perhaps deserved most praise.
As a whole, they were a generous, large-hearted, liberal-minded people, and their faults were far fewer than their virtues. The yeomanry, in their own rude, rough-and-ready manner, reflected the same sort of personal independence of character and proud sense of individuality as the social aristocracy.
Little can be learned of Loudoun's participation in the last great French and Indian War (1754-1763). It had its beginning three years prior to her admission into the sisterhood of Virginia counties, and the services she must have rendered during that period are, of course, accredited to Fairfax, of which county she was then a part. The few existing or available records of the remaining six years of warfare, as of the entire period, are imperfect and unlocalized and would baffle the most experienced and persevering compiler.
The only deductions that have seemed at all noteworthy are here presented:
The General Assembly of Virginia, on April 14, 1757, passed an act providing for the appointment of a committee to direct the pay of the officers and soldiers then in the pay of the Colony, of "the rangers formerly employed, and for the expense of building a fort in the Cherokee country," for the pay of the militia that had "been drawn out into actual service, and also for provisions for the said soldiers, rangers, and militia...."
In the following schedule are given the names of Loudoun payees and the amount received by each:
| £ | s. | d. | ||
| To | Captain Nicholas Minor | 1 | 00 | 00 |
| Æneas Campbell, lieutenant | 7 | 6 | ||
| Francis Wilks | 1 | 17 | ||
| James Willock | 1 | 15 | ||
| John Owsley and William Stephens, 15s. each | 1 | 10 | ||
| Robert Thomas | 10 | |||
| John Moss, Jr. | 4 | |||
| John Thomas, for provisions | 5 | |||
| John Moss, for provisions | 2 | 8 | ||
| William Ross, for provisions | 2 | |||
| 7 | 13 | 2 |
By a later act of the same body commissioners were empowered "to examine, state, and settle the accounts of such pay, provisions, arms, etc.," of the six counties from which they were appointed, "and all arrears whatsoever relating to the militia."
The following list of Loudoun beneficiaries, with the amounts opposite, is reproduced in the identical form in which it was then submitted: