marching by the two different routes, and recommended an order of
march by Braddock's road, which would bring the whole army before fort
Du Quesne in thirty-four days, with a supply of provisions for
eighty-six days.

{August 2.}

In a letter of the same date addressed to Major Halket, aid of General
Forbes, Colonel Washington thus expressed his forebodings of the
mischiefs to be apprehended from the adoption of the proposed route.
"I am just returned from a conference held with Colonel Bouquet. I
find him fixed--I think I may say unalterably fixed--to lead you a new
way to the Ohio, through a road, every inch of which is to be cut at
this advanced season, when we have scarcely time left to tread the
beaten track, universally confessed to be the best passage through the
mountains.

"If Colonel Bouquet succeeds in this point with the general, all is
lost! all is lost indeed! our enterprise is ruined! and we shall be
stopped at the Laurel hill this winter; but not to gather laurels,
except of the kind which cover the mountains. The southern Indians
will turn against us, and these colonies will be desolated by such an
accession to the enemy's strength. These must be the consequences of a
miscarriage; and a miscarriage, the almost necessary consequence of an
attempt to march the army by this route."

Colonel Washington's remonstrances and arguments were unavailing; and
the new route was adopted. His extreme chagrin at this measure, and at
the delays resulting from it, was expressed in anxious letters to Mr.
Fauquier, then governor of Virginia, and to the speaker of the house