1763, July.] EMOTION OF BOUQUET. 45 



eludes : " I can't help thinking that the enemy will 

 collect, after cutting off the little posts one after 

 another, leaving Fort Pitt as too tough a morsel, 

 and bend their whole force upon the frontiers." 



On the second of July, he describes an attack 

 by about twenty Indians on a party of mowers, 

 several of whom were killed. " This accident," 

 he says, " has thrown the people into a great con- 

 sternation, but such is their stupidity that they will 

 do nothing right for their own preservation." 



It was on the next day that he sent a mounted 

 soldier to Bouquet with news of the loss of Presqu' 

 Isle and its sister posts, which Blane, who had 

 received it from Fort Pitt, had contrived to send 

 him ; though he himself, in his feeble little fort of 

 Ligonier, buried in a sea of forests, hardly dared 

 hope to maintain himself. Bouquet was greatly 

 moved at the tidings, and his vexation betrayed 

 him into injustice towards the defender of Presqu 

 Isle. " Humanity makes me hope that Christie is 

 dead, as his scandalous capitulation, for a post of 

 that consequence and so impregnable to savages, 

 deserves the most severe punishment." ^ He is 

 equally vehement in regard to Blane, who appears 

 to have intimated, in writing to Ourry, that he had 

 himself had thoughts of capitulating, like Christie. 

 " I shivered when you hinted to me Lieutenant 

 Bl — 's intentions. Death and infamy would have 



1 The blockhouse at Presqu' Isle had been built under the direction 

 of Bouquet. Being of wood, it was not fire-proof; and he urged upon 

 Amherst that it should be re-built of brick with a slate roof, thus making 

 it absolutely proof against Indians. 



