, if he had treated them kindly;
but he slighted and neglected them, and they gradually left him.
In conversation with him one day, he was giving me some account
of his intended progress. "After taking Fort Duquesne," says he,
"I am to proceed to Niagara; and, having taken that, to Frontenac,
if the season will allow time; and I suppose it will, for Duquesne
can hardly detain me above three or four days; and then I see nothing
that can obstruct my march to Niagara." Having before revolv'd
in my mind the long line his army must make in their march by a
very narrow road, to be cut for them thro' the woods and bushes,
and also what I had read of a former defeat of fifteen hundred French,
who invaded the Iroquois country, I had conceiv'd some doubts and some
fears for the event of the campaign. But I ventur'd only to say,
"To be sure, sir, if you arrive well before Duquesne, with these
fine troops, so well provided with artillery, that place not yet
compleatly fortified, and as we hear with no very strong garrison,
can probably make but a short resistance. The only danger I apprehend
of obstruction to your march is from ambuscades of Indians, who,
by constant practice, are dexterous in laying and executing them;
and the slender line, near four miles long, which your army must make,
may expose it to be attack'd by surprise in its flanks, and to be
cut like a thread into several pieces, which, from their distance,
can not come up in time to support each other.
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