that for a time he could neither write a letter nor dictate one.  He managed, however, two days after reaching Fort Duquesne, to send Amherst a brief notice of his success, adding:  “I shall leave this place as soon as I am able to stand; but God knows when I shall reach Philadelphia, if I ever do."[668] On the way back, a hut with a chimney was built for him at each stopping-place, and on the twenty-eighth of December Major Halket writes from “Tomahawk Camp:”  “How great was our disappointment, on coming to this ground last night, to find that the chimney was unlaid, no fire made, nor any wood cut that would burn.  This distressed the General to the greatest degree, by obliging him after his long journey to sit above two hours without any fire, exposed to a snowstorm, which had very near destroyed him entirely; but with great difficulty, by the assistance of some cordials, he was brought to."[669] At length, carried all the way in his litter, he reached Philadelphia, where, after lingering through the winter, he died in March, and was buried with military honors in the chancel of Christ Church.

[Footnote 667:  Bouquet to Chief Justice Allen, 15 Nov. 1758.]

[Footnote 668:  Forbes to Amherst, 26 Nov. 1758.]

[Footnote 669:  Halket to Bouquet, 28 Dec. 1758.]

If his achievement was not brilliant, its solid value was above price.  It opened the Great West to English enterprise, took from France half her savage allies, and relieved the western borders from the scourge of Indian war.  From southern New York to North Carolina, the frontier populations had cause to bless the memory of the steadfast and all-enduring soldier.

So ended the campaign of 1758.  The centre of the French had held its own triumphantly at Ticonderoga; but their left had been forced back by the capture of Louisbourg, and their right by that of Fort Duquesne, while their entire right wing had been well nigh cut off by the destruction of Fort Frontenac.  The outlook was dark.  Their own Indians were turning against them.  “They have struck us,” wrote Doreil to the Minister of War; “they have seized three canoes loaded with furs on Lake Ontario, and murdered the men in them:  sad forerunner of what we have to fear!  Peace, Monseigneur, give us peace!  Pardon me, but I cannot repeat that word too often.”

NOTE:  The Bouquet and Haldimand Papers in the British Museum contain a mass of curious correspondence of the principal persons engaged in the expedition under Forbes; copies of it all are before me.  The Public Record Office, America and West Indies, has also furnished much material, including the official letters of Forbes.  The Writings of Washington, the Archives and Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, and the magazines and newspapers of the time may be mentioned among the sources of information, along with a variety of miscellaneous contemporary letters.  The Journals of Christian Frederic Post are printed in full in the Olden Time and elsewhere.