[Footnote 290:  Governor Shirley’s Message to his Assembly, 13 Feb. 1755.  Resolutions of the Assembly of Massachusetts, 18 Feb. 1755.  Shirley’s original idea was to build a fort on a rising ground near Crown Point, in order to command it.  This was soon abandoned for the more honest and more practical plan of direct attack.]

[Footnote 291:  Correspondence of Shirley, Feb. 1755.  The number was much increased later in the season.]

He had never seen service, and knew nothing of war.  By birth he was Irish, of good family, being nephew of Admiral Sir Peter Warren, who, owning extensive wild lands on the Mohawk, had placed the young man in charge of them nearly twenty years before.  Johnson was born to prosper.  He had ambition, energy, an active mind, a tall, strong person, a rough, jovial temper, and a quick adaptation to his surroundings.  He could drink flip with Dutch boors, or Madeira with royal governors.  He liked the society of the great, would intrigue and flatter when he had an end to gain, and foil a rival without looking too closely at the means; but compared with the Indian traders who infested the border, he was a model of uprightness.  He lived by the Mohawk in a fortified house which was a stronghold against foes and a scene of hospitality to friends, both white and red.  Here—­for his tastes were not fastidious—­presided for many years a Dutch or German wench whom he finally married; and after her death a young Mohawk squaw took her place.  Over his neighbors, the Indians of the Five Nations, and all others of their race with whom he had to deal, he acquired a remarkable influence.  He liked them, adopted their ways, and treated them kindly or sternly as the case required, but always with a justice and honesty in strong contrast with the rascalities of the commission of Albany traders who had lately managed their affairs, and whom they so detested that one of their chiefs called them “not men, but devils.”  Hence, when Johnson was made Indian superintendent there was joy through all the Iroquois confederacy.  When, in addition, he was made a general, he assembled the warriors in council to engage them to aid the expedition.

This meeting took place at his own house, known as Fort Johnson; and as more than eleven hundred Indians appeared at his call, his larder was sorely taxed to entertain them.  The speeches were interminable.  Johnson, as master of Indian rhetoric, knew his audience too well not to contest with them the palm of insufferable prolixity.  The climax was reached on the fourth day, and he threw down the war-belt.  An Oneida chief took it up; Stevens, the interpreter, began the war-dance, and the assembled warriors howled in chorus.  Then a tub of punch was brought in, and they all drank the King’s health.[292] They showed less alacrity, however, to fight his battles, and scarcely three hundred of them would take the war-path.  Too many of their friends and relatives were enlisted for the French.