call upon the sachems of the Six Nations to acquaint them with it. I
gave him a string of wampum and a twist of tobacco, and desired him to
send for the half king, which he promised to do by a runner in the
morning, and for other sachems. I invited him and the other great men
present, to my tent, where they stayed about an hour and returned.

According to the best observations I could make, Mr. Gift's new
settlement (which we passed by) bears about west northwest seventy
miles from Wills' creek; Shanapins, or the forks, north by west, or
north northwest about fifty miles from that; and from thence to the
Loggstown, the course is nearly west about eighteen or twenty miles:
so that the whole distance, as we went and computed it, is, at least,
one hundred and thirty-five or one hundred and forty miles from our
back inhabitants.

25th. Came to town, four of ten Frenchmen, who had deserted from a
company at the Kuskuskas, which lies at the mouth of this river. I got
the following account from them. They were sent from New Orleans with
a hundred men, and eight canoe loads of provisions, to this place,
where they expected to have met the same number of men, from the forts
on this side of lake Erie, to convoy them and the stores up, who were
not arrived when they ran off.

I inquired into the situation of the French on the Mississippi, their
numbers, and what forts they had built. They informed me, that there
were four small forts between New Orleans and the Black Islands,
garrisoned with about thirty or forty men, and a few small pieces in
each. That at New Orleans, which is near the mouth of the Mississippi,
there are thirty-five companies of forty men each, with a pretty
strong fort mounting eight carriage guns; and at the Black Islands