There were no Indians with Washington. Even the Half-King held aloof;
though, being of a caustic turn, he did not spare his comments on the
fight, telling Conrad Weiser, the provincial interpreter, that the
French behaved like cowards, and the English like fools.[159]
[Footnote 157: Dinwiddie writes to the Lords of Trade that thirty in all
were killed, and seventy wounded, on the English side; and the
commissary Varin writes to Bigot that the French lost seventy-two
killed and wounded.]
[Footnote 158: _A Journal had from Thomas Forbes, lately a Private
Soldier in the King of France's Service_. (Public Record Office.) Forbes
was one of Villiers' soldiers. The commissary Varin puts the number of
French at six hundred, besides Indians.]
[Footnote 159: _Journal of Conrad Weiser_, in _Colonial Records of Pa._,
VI. 150. The Half-King also remarked that Washington "was a good-natured
man, but had no experience, and would by no means take advice from the
Indians, but was always driving them on to fight by his directions; that
he lay at one place from one full moon to the other, and made no
fortifications at all, except that little thing upon the meadow, where
he thought the French would come up to him in open field."]
In the early morning the fort was abandoned and the retreat began. The
Indians had killed all the horses and cattle, and Washington's men were
so burdened with the sick and wounded, whom they were obliged to carry
on their backs, that most of the baggage was perforce left behind.
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