old me he did
not at present want a hand, being lately supplied with one; but there
was another printer in town, lately set up, one Keimer, who, perhaps,
might employ me; if not, I should be welcome to lodge at his house,
and he would give me a little work to do now and then till fuller
business should offer.

II

WARNINGS BRADDOCK DID NOT HEED[18]

This general [Braddock] was, I think, a brave man, and might probably
have made a figure as a good officer in some European war. But he had
too much self-confidence, too high an opinion of the validity of
regular troops, and too mean a one of both Americans and Indians.
George Croghan,[19] our Indian interpreter, joined him on his march
with one hundred of those people, who might have been of great use to
his army as guides, scouts, etc., if he had treated them kindly; but
he slighted and neglected them, and they gradually left him.

[Footnote 18: From Chapter X of the "Autobiography."]

[Footnote 19: Croghan afterward became associated closely with Sir
William Johnson in the Mohawk and Upper Susquehanna Valleys. He
acquired title to a large tract of land at the foot of Otsego Lake,
but, while settling it, mortgaged the land heavily, and eventually
lost it through foreclosure. William Cooper, father of the novelist,
subsequently obtained title to these lands and went into the country
to settle them. In the course of his labors, he founded the village of
Cooperstown, and made it his home. It was this circumstance which led
to Fenimore Cooper's knowledge of Indian and frontier life as depicted
in his writings. The home of William Cooper had previously been in
Burlington, N. J.]

In conversation with him one day he was giving me some account of his
intended progress. "After taking Fort Duquesne,"[20] says he, "I am to
proceed to Niagara; and, having taken that, to Frontenac,[21] 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 revolved in my mind the
long line his army must make in their march by a very narrow road, to
be cut for them through 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 conceived some doubts and some fears for the event of
the campaign. But I ventured only to say, "To be sure, sir, if you
arrive well before Duquesne, wi