[Footnote 647:  Correspondence of Forbes and Bouquet, July, August, 1758.]

[Footnote 648:  Forbes to Pitt, 6 Sept. 1758.]

While Bouquet was with the advance at Raystown, Forbes was still in Philadelphia, trying to bring the army into shape, and collecting provisions, horses, and wagons; much vexed meantime by the Assembly, whose tedious disputes about taxing the proprietaries greatly obstructed the service.  “No sergeant or quartermaster of a regiment,” he says, “is obliged to look into more details than I am; and if I did not see to everything myself, we should never get out of this town.”  July had begun before he could reach the frontier village of Carlisle, where he found everything in confusion.  After restoring some order, he wrote to Bouquet:  “I have been and still am but poorly, with a cursed flux, but shall move day after to-morrow.”  He was doomed to disappointment; and it was not till the ninth of August that he sent another letter from the same place to the same military friend.  “I am now able to write after three weeks of a most violent and tormenting distemper, which, thank God, seems now much abated as to pain, but has left me as weak as a new-born infant.  However, I hope to have strength enough to set out from this place on Friday next.”  The disease was an inflammation of the stomach and other vital organs; and when he should have been in bed, with complete repose of body and mind, he was racked continually with the toils and worries of a most arduous campaign.

He left Carlisle on the eleventh, carried on a kind of litter made of a hurdle slung between two horses; and two days later he wrote from Shippensburg:  “My journey here from Carlisle raised my disorder and pains to so intolerable a degree that I was obliged to stop, and may not get away for a day or two.”  Again, on the eighteenth:  “I am better, and partly free from the excruciating pain I suffered; but still so weak that I can scarce bear motion.”  He lay helpless at Shippensburg till September was well advanced.  On the second he says:  “I really cannot describe how I have suffered both in body and mind of late, and the relapses have been worse as the disappointment was greater;” and on the fourth, still writing to Bouquet, who in the camp at Raystown was struggling with many tribulations:  “I am sorry you have met with so many cross accidents to vex you, and have such a parcel of scoundrels as the provincials to work with; mais le vin est tire, and you must drop a little of the gentleman and treat them as they deserve.  Seal and send off the enclosed despatch to Sir John by some sure hand.  He is a very odd man, and I am sorry it has been my fate to have any concern with him.  I am afraid our army will not admit of division, lest one half meet with a check; therefore I would consult Colonel Washington, though perhaps not follow his advice, as his behavior about the roads was noways like a soldier.  I thank my good cousin for his letter, and have only to say that I have all my life been subject to err; but I now reform, as I go to bed at eight at night, if able to sit up so late.”