o. If this be not enough to convince you that such was really
the case, know that your Uncle Juvinell is entirely of the same
opinion.

XXI.

MORE BLUNDERING.

At last, about the middle of September, the expedition was set in
motion. Gen. Forbes sent Col. Boquet in advance, with nearly two
thousand men, to open and level the road. In order to get more certain
information touching the condition of the enemy,--his number,
strength, and probable designs,--it was thought advisable by some of
the officers to send out a large party of observation in the direction
of Fort Duquesne. It was to be made up of British regulars, Scotch
Highlanders, and Pennsylvania and Virginia rangers,--eight hundred
picked men in all. Washington strongly disapproved the plan, on the
ground that the regulars, being wholly unacquainted with the Indian
mode of fighting, and unable to operate at so great a distance without
taking with them a cumbrous train of baggage, would prove a
hinderance, instead of a furtherance, to an enterprise which must
needs owe its success to the caution, silence, secrecy, and swiftness
on the part of those engaged. He therefore advised the sending-out of
small companies of rangers and Indian hunters, who, knowing the
country well, could spy out the enemy with less risk of detection to
themselves, and, moving without baggage, could make far better speed
with the tidings they may have gathered. The like advice, you may
remember, he gave to Braddock. It met with a like reception, and the
like disaster was the consequence.

The party set out from Laurel Hill, and began its tedious tramp across
the fifty miles of wilderness that lay between that point and Fort
Duquesne. It was headed by Major Grant, a noisy, blustering braggart,
who, hankering after notoriety rather than seeking praise for duty
well and faithfully done, went beyond the limits of his instructions;
which were simply to find out all he could about the enemy, without
suffering the enemy to find out more than he could help about himself,
and, by all possible means, to avoid a battle. But, instead of
conducting the expedition with silence and circumspection, he marched
along in so open and boisterous a manner, as made it appear he meant
to give the enemy timely notice of his coming, and bully him into an
attack even while yet on the way. The French, keeping themselves well
informed, by their spies, of his every movement, suffered him to
approach almost