On July 26 some Indian ambassadors, among them Turtle’s Heart, came to the post with a flag of truce.  They were loud in their protestations of friendship, and once more solicitous for the safety of the garrison.  The Ottawas, they said, were coming in a vast horde, to ’seize and eat up everything’ that came in their way.  The garrison’s only hope of escape would be to vacate the fort speedily and ‘go home to their wives and children.’  Ecuyer replied that he would never abandon his position ’as long as a white man lives in America.’  He despised the Ottawas, he said, and was ’very much surprised at our brothers the Delawares for proposing to us to leave this place and go home.  This is our home.’  His humour was once more in evidence in the warning he gave the Indians against repeating their attack on the fort:  ’I will throw bomb-shells, which will burst and blow you to atoms, and fire cannon among you, loaded with a whole bagful of bullets.  Therefore take care, for I don’t want to hurt you.’

The Indians now gave up all hope of capturing Fort Pitt by deception, and prepared to take it by assault.  That very night they stole within range, dug shelter-pits in the banks of the Alleghany and Monongahela, and at daybreak began a vigorous attack on the garrison.  Musket-balls came whistling over the ramparts and smote every point where a soldier showed himself.  The shrieking balls and the wild war-whoops of the assailants greatly alarmed the women and children; but never for a moment was the fort in real danger or did Ecuyer or his men fear disaster.  So carefully had the commandant seen to his defences, that, although hundreds of missiles fell within the confines of the fort, only one man was killed and only seven were wounded.  Ecuyer himself was among the wounded:  one of two arrows that fell within the fort had, to use his own words, ‘the insolence to make free’ with his ‘left leg.’  From July 27 to August 1 this horde of Delawares, Shawnees, Wyandots, and Mingoes kept up the attack.  Then, without apparent cause, as suddenly as they had arrived, they all disappeared.  To the garrison the relief from constant vigil, anxious days, and sleepless nights was most welcome.

The reason for this sudden relief was that the red men had learned of a rich prize for them, now approaching Fort Pitt.  Bouquet, with a party of soldiers, was among the defiles of the Alleghanies.  The fort could wait; the Indians would endeavour to annihilate Bouquet’s force as they had annihilated Braddock’s army in the same region eight years before; and if successful, they could then at their leisure return to Fort Pitt and starve it out or take it by assault.