[Footnote 323:  Bigot au Ministre, 27 Aout, 1755.]

[Footnote 324:  Bigot au Ministre, 5 Sept. 1755.]

[Footnote 325:  Minutes of a Council of War at Oswego, 18 Sept. 1755.]

“All I am uneasy about is our provisions,” writes John Shirley to his friend Morris; “our men have been upon half allowance of bread these three weeks past, and no rum given to ’em.  My father yesterday called all the Indians together and made ’em a speech on the subject of General Johnson’s engagement, which he calculated to inspire them with a spirit of revenge.”  After the speech he gave them a bullock for a feast, which they roasted and ate, pretending that they were eating the Governor of Canada!  Some provisions arriving, orders were given to embark on the next day; but the officers murmured their dissent.  The weather was persistently bad, their vessels would not hold half the party, and the bateaux, made only for river navigation, would infallibly founder on the treacherous and stormy lake.  “All the field-officers,” says John Shirley, “think it too rash an attempt; and I have heard so much of it that I think it my duty to let my father know what I hear.”  Another council was called; and the General, reluctantly convinced of the danger, put the question whether to go or not.  The situation admitted but one reply.  The council was of opinion that for the present the enterprise was impracticable; that Oswego should be strengthened, more vessels built, and preparation made to renew the attempt as soon as spring opened.[326] All thoughts of active operations were now suspended, and during what was left of the season the troops exchanged the musket for the spade, saw, and axe.  At the end of October, leaving seven hundred men at Oswego, Shirley returned to Albany, and narrowly escaped drowning on the way, while passing a rapid in a whale-boat, to try the fitness of that species of craft for river navigation.[327]

[Footnote 326:  Minutes of a Council of War at Oswego, 27 Sept. 1755.]

[Footnote 327:  On the Niagara expedition, Braddock’s Instructions to Major-General Shirley.  Correspondence of Shirley, 1755. Conduct of Major-General Shirley (London, 1758).  Letters of John Shirley in Pennsylvania Archives, II. Bradstreet to Shirley, 17 Aug. 1755.  MSS. in Massachusetts Archives, Review of Military Operations in North America.  Gentleman’s Magazine, 1757, p. 73. London Magazine, 1759, p. 594.  Trumbull, Hist.  Connecticut, II. 370.]

Unfortunately for him, he had fallen out with Johnson, whom he had made what he was, but who now turned against him,—­a seeming ingratitude not wholly unprovoked.  Shirley had diverted the New Jersey regiment, destined originally for Crown Point, to his own expedition against Niagara.  Naturally inclined to keep all the reins in his own hands, he had encroached on Johnson’s new office of Indian superintendent, held conferences