his
majesty, you may now do a most acceptable service, and make it easy to
yourselves; for three or four of such as can not separately spare from
the business of their plantations a wagon and four horses and a driver,
may do it together, one furnishing the wagon, another one or two horses,
and another the driver, and divide the pay proportionately between you;
but if you do not this service to your king and country voluntarily,
when such good pay and reasonable terms are offered to you, your loyalty
will be strongly suspected.

"The king's business must be done; so many brave troops, come so far for
your defence, must not stand idle through your backwardness to do what
may be reasonably expected from you; wagons and horses must be had;
violent measures will probably be used, and you will be left to seek a
recompense where you can find it, and your case, perhaps, be little
pitied or regarded.

"I have no particular interest in this affair, as, except the
satisfaction of endeavoring to do good, I shall have only my labor for
my pains.

"If this method of obtaining the wagons and horses is not likely to
succeed, I am obliged to send word to the general in fourteen days; and
I suppose Sir John St. Clair, the hussar, with a body of soldiers, will
immediately enter the province for the purpose, which I shall be sorry
to hear, because I am very sincerely and truly

"Your friend and well-wisher,

"B. FRANKLIN."

I received of the general about eight hundred pounds to be disbursed in
advance-money to the wagon owners, etc.; but that sum being
insufficient, I advanced upward of two hundred pounds more, and in two
weeks the one hundred and fifty wagons, with two hundred and fifty-nine
carrying horses, were on their march for the camp. The advertisement
promised payment according to the valuation, in case any wagon or horse
should be lost. The owners, however, alleging they did not know General
Braddock, or what dependence might be had on his promise, insisted on my
bond for the performance, which I accordingly gave them.

While I was at the camp, supping one evening with the officers of
Colonel Dunbar's regiment, he represented to me his concern for the
subalterns, who, he said, were generally not in affluence, and could ill
afford, in this dear country, to lay in the stores that might be
necessary in so long a march, through a wilderness, where nothing was to
be purchased.

I commiserated their case, and resolved to