I found the general much disgusted at the delays in supplying him, and, as I thought, most unwise, and only increased his trouble by abuse of the colonies, for the more men deserve abuse the less they like it, and get sullen and less than ever inclined to help.
Just before we set out from Fort Cumberland, the general being now in the saddle, Lord Fairfax presented me with a handsome pair of pistols, and said: “I should have been pleased to have had a son like you; but for that I must have had a wife, which is a calamity I have been spared. If occasion serves, I shall be glad to hear from you.”
Lord Fairfax had informed me that General Braddock would ask my opinion and advice as to the use to be made of Indians and our rangers. He did consult me, but only, I believed, because his lordship had desired him to do so.
I never succeeded to make much impression upon him, and it was as the wise Mr. Franklin had said. Many Indians joined us on the way with their squaws, but the chiefs were too little considered or consulted. Their women were insulted or worse, and those that came to-day, receiving no gifts, were gone to-morrow.
On June 6, Sir John St. Clair was sent on in advance with some six hundred choppers to widen and better my old road. After him came Sir Peter Halket’s force. On June 10, if I remember aright, the general followed with his staff and the rest of the army. As soon as the march began, the lack of discipline became plain, and the officers were worse than the men and altogether too much drunkenness.
Captain Croghan said to me: “I should like to give these fellows a wood drill and upset half the rum-kegs.” This was as we led our horses over the second mountain. “Why, sir,” he said, “here are hundreds of waggons and enough gimcracks and nonsense to fit out a town, and all the officers of foot on horseback.”
I said that I had represented to the general and Colonel Dunbar the risk of this long train, and urged that we use our horses for packhorses and to carry only what we really needed. “That would be,” Captain Croghan said, “for the men, blankets, an axe, a rifle, a knife, and ammunition.”
He went on to tell us that he had urged this to be done again and again—that was, to Captains Orme and Shirley, the military secretary of the commander, for he had been told plainly enough that he was himself too small a person to converse with the general, and a d—d trader he had been called. He was sure the general would listen to no advice except from the King’s officers. I had to admit that he listened to me at times, and had always said in a civil way that he would consider of what I advised, but got no further.