Captain Robert Orme, of whom Shirley speaks, was aide-de-camp to Braddock, and author of a copious and excellent Journal of the expedition, now in the British Museum.[210] His portrait, painted at full length by Sir Joshua Reynolds, hangs in the National Gallery at London.  He stands by his horse, a gallant young figure, with a face pale, yet rather handsome, booted to the knee, his scarlet coat, ample waistcoat, and small three-cornered hat all heavy with gold lace.  The General had two other aides-de-camp, Captain Roger Morris and Colonel George Washington, whom he had invited, in terms that do him honor, to become one of his military family.

[Footnote 210:  Printed by Sargent, in his excellent monograph of Braddock’s Expedition.]

It has been said that Braddock despised not only provincials, but Indians.  Nevertheless he took some pains to secure their aid, and complained that Indian affairs had been so ill conducted by the provinces that it was hard to gain their confidence.  This was true; the tribes had been alienated by gross neglect.  Had they been protected from injustice and soothed by attentions and presents, the Five Nations, Delawares, and Shawanoes would have been retained as friends.  But their complaints had been slighted, and every gift begrudged.  The trader Croghan brought, however, about fifty warriors, with as many women and children, to the camp at Fort Cumberland.  They were objects of great curiosity to the soldiers, who gazed with astonishment on their faces, painted red, yellow, and black, their ears slit and hung with pendants, and their heads close shaved, except the feathered scalp-lock at the crown.  “In the day,” says an officer, “they are in our camp, and in the night they go into their own, where they dance and make a most horrible noise.”  Braddock received them several times in his tent, ordered the guard to salute them, made them speeches, caused cannon to be fired and drums and fifes to play in their honor, regaled them with rum, and gave them a bullock for a feast; whereupon, being much pleased, they danced a war-dance, described by one spectator as “droll and odd, showing how they scalp and fight;” after which, says another, “they set up the most horrid song or cry that ever I heard."[211] These warriors, with a few others, promised the General to join him on the march; but he apparently grew tired of them, for a famous chief, called Scarroyaddy, afterwards complained:  “He looked upon us as dogs, and would never hear anything that we said to him.”  Only eight of them remained with him to the end.[212]

[Footnote 211:  Journal of a Naval Officer, in Sargent. The Expedition of Major-General Braddock, being Extracts of Letters from an Officer (London, 1755).]

[Footnote 212:  Statement of George Croghan, in Sargent, appendix iii.]