Forbes described the country to Pitt as an "immense
uninhabited wilderness, overgrown everywhere with trees and brushwood,
so that nowhere can one see twenty yards." In truth, as far as eye or
mind could reach, a prodigious forest vegetation spread its impervious
canopy over hill, valley, and plain, and wrapped the stern and awful
waste in the shadows of the tomb.
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.
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