y inferior, either for defence or advantages;
especially the latter. For a fort at the fork would be equally well
situated on the Ohio, and have the entire command of the Monongahela,
which runs up our settlement, and is extremely well designed for water
carriage, as it is of a deep, still nature. Besides, a fort at the
fork might be built at much less expense than at the other places.

Nature has well contrived this lower place for water defence; but the
hill whereon it must stand being about a quarter of a mile in length,
and then descending gradually on the land side, will render it
difficult and very expensive to make a sufficient fortification there.
The whole flat upon the hill must be taken in, the side next the
descent made extremely high, or else the hill itself cut away:
otherwise, the enemy may raise batteries within that distance without
being exposed to a single shot from the fort.

Shingiss attended us to the Loggstown, where we arrived between
sun-setting and dark, the twenty-fifth day after I left Williamsburg.
We travelled over some extremely good and bad land to get to this
place.

As soon as I came into town, I went to Monakatoocha (as the half king
was out at his hunting cabin on Little Beaver creek, about fifteen
miles off) and informed him by John Davidson, my Indian interpreter,
that I was sent a messenger to the French general; and was ordered to
call upon the sachems of the Six Nations to acquaint them with it. I
gave him a string of wampum and a twist of tobacco, and desired him to
send for the half king, which he promised to do by a runner in the
morning, and for other sachems. I invited him and the other great men
present, to my tent, where they stayed about an hour and returned.

According to the best observations I could make, Mr. Gift's new
settlement (which we passed by) bears about west northwest seventy
miles from Wills' creek; Shanapins, or the forks, north by west, or
north northwest about fifty miles from that; and from thence to the
Loggstown, the course is nearly west about eighteen or twenty miles:
so that the whole distance, as we went and computed it, is, at least,
one hundred and thirty-five or one hundred and forty miles from our
back inhabitants.

25th. Came to town, four of ten Frenchmen, who had deserted from a
company at the Kuskuskas, which lies at the mouth of this river. I got
the following account from them. They were sent from New Orleans with
a hundred men, and