nney's Description of Fort Duquesne, 1756_, in
_Hazard's Pennsylvania Register_, VIII. 318. _Letters of Robert Stobo,
Hostage at Fort Duquesne, 1754_, in _Colonial Records of Pa._ VI. 141,
161. Stobo's _Plan of Fort Duquesne, 1754. Journal of Thomas Forbes,
1755. Letter of Captain Haslet, 1758_, in _Olden Time_, I. 184. _Plan of
Fort Duquesne_ in Public Record Office.]

The garrison consisted of a few companies of the regular troops
stationed permanently in the colony, and to these were added a
considerable number of Canadians. Contrecoeur still held the
command.[215] Under him were three other captains, Beaujeu, Dumas, and
Ligneris. Besides the troops and Canadians, eight hundred Indian
warriors, mustered from far and near, had built their wigwams and
camp-sheds on the open ground, or under the edge of the neighboring
woods,--very little to the advantage of the young corn. Some were
baptized savages settled in Canada,--Caughnawagas from Saut St. Louis,
Abenakis from St. Francis, and Hurons from Lorette, whose chief bore the
name of Anastase, in honor of that Father of the Church. The rest were
unmitigated heathen,--Pottawattamies and Ojibwas from the northern lakes
under Charles Langlade, the same bold partisan who had led them, three
years before, to attack the Miamis at Pickawillany; Shawanoes and
Mingoes from the Ohio; and Ottawas from Detroit, commanded, it is said,
by that most redoubtable of savages, Pontiac. The law of the survival of
the fittest had wrought on this heterogeneous crew through countless
generations; and with the primitive Indian, the fittest was the
hardiest, fiercest, most adroit, and most wily. Baptized and heathen
alike they had just enjoyed a diversion greatly to their taste. A young
Pennsylvanian named James Smith, a spirited and intelligent boy of
eighteen, had been waylaid by three Indians on the western borders of
the province and led captive to the fort. When the party came to the
edge of the clearing, his captors, who had shot and scalped his
companion, raised the scalp-yell; whereupon a din of responsive whoops
and firing of guns rose from all the Indian camps, and their inmates
swarmed out like bees, while the French in the fort shot off muskets and
cannon to honor the occasion. The unfortunate boy, the object of this
obstreperous rejoicing, presently saw a multitude of savages, naked,
hideously bedaubed with red, blue, black, and brown, and armed with
sticks or clubs, ranging themsel