At the start of the Seven Years’ War, while George Washington was serving as an officer in the Virginia militia, he was forced to adopt a strategy of scarcity, unwittingly anticipating what he would experience a few years later during the uprising against the British. His approach to military justice during his early years of command focused on the legal framework needed to build a higher-quality force. In his view, military law should help create disciplined soldiers through effective recruitment, prevent discord among officers, and enable a daily fight against desertion. One of the main causes of British defeats at the start of the war was, in Washington’s view, military laws, regulations, and difficulties in enforcing military justice. Some of his men recruited in the early years “[…] were subject to no law,” in his words. It was therefore an as-yet-incomplete colonial arsenal of standards—modelled on metropolitan texts but adapted—that Washington demanded from the Virginia Assembly. In his view, the Assembly was making his task difficult. One of the main difficulties was the existence of a territorial jurisdiction clause prohibiting the holding of courts-martial outside Virginia’s territory, which rendered military justice virtually ineffective.