Having secured his magazines at Raystown, and built a fort there named Fort Bedford, Bouquet made a forward movement of some forty miles, crossed the main Alleghany and Laurel Hill, and, taking post on a stream called Loyalhannon Creek, began another depot of supplies as a base for the final advance on Fort Duquesne, which was scarcely fifty miles distant.

Vaudreuil had learned from prisoners the march of Forbes, and, with his usual egotism, announced to the Colonial Minister what he had done in consequence.  “I have provided for the safety for Fort Duquesne.”  “I have sent reinforcements to M. de Ligneris, who commands there.”  “I have done the impossible to supply him with provisions, and I am now sending them in abundance, in order that the troops I may perhaps have occasion to send to drive off the English may not be delayed.”  “A stronger fort is needed on the Ohio; but I cannot build one till after the peace; then I will take care to build such a one as will thenceforth keep the English out of that country.”  Some weeks later he was less confident, and very anxious for news from Ligneris.  He says that he has sent him all the succors he could, and ordered troops to go to his aid from Niagara, Detroit, and Illinois, as well as the militia of Detroit, with the Indians there and elsewhere in the West,—­Hurons, Ottawas, Pottawattamies, Miamis, and other tribes.  What he fears is that the English will not attack the fort till all these Indians have grown tired of waiting, and have gone home again.[653] This was precisely the intention of Forbes, and the chief object of his long delays.

[Footnote 653:  Vaudreuil au Ministre, Juillet, Aout, Octobre 1758.]

He had another good reason for making no haste.  There was hope that the Delawares and Shawanoes, who lived within easy reach of Fort Duquesne, and who for the past three years had spread havoc throughout the English border, might now be won over from the French alliance.  Forbes wrote to Bouquet from Shippensburg:  “After many intrigues with Quakers, the Provincial Commissioners, the Governor, etc., and by the downright bullying of Sir William Johnson, I hope I have now brought about a general convention of the Indians."[654] The convention was to include the Five Nations, the Delawares, the Shawanoes, and other tribes, who had accepted wampum belts of invitation, and promised to meet the Governor and Commissioners of the various provinces at the town of Easton, before the middle of September.  This seeming miracle was wrought by several causes.  The Indians in the French interest, always greedy for presents, had not of late got enough to satisfy them.  Many of those destined for them had been taken on the way from France by British cruisers, and the rest had passed through the hands of official knaves, who sold the greater part for their own profit.  Again, the goods supplied by French fur-traders were few and dear; and the Indians remembered with regret the