Born in 1695, the son of an officer in the Coldstream Guards, and an officer of the Guards himself, he was sixty years old when sent out to America by the Duke of Cumberland. He had the reputation of being a very severe disciplinarian, and yet we have Walpole's own admission that while serving at Gibraltar, 'he made himself adored.'[9] He was criticized by Franklin as being too self-confident, and as having too high an opinion of European as compared with colonial troops; but, on the other hand, the scanty colonial levies which reached him had not shown high fighting qualities, and his care for transport and supplies, together with his anxiety to conciliate and use the Indians on the line of march, were evidence of prudence and military forethought. Burke wrote of him as 'abounding too much in his own sense for the degree of military knowledge he possessed';[10] but probably Wolfe's judgement upon him was sound, that 'though not a master of the difficult art of war, he was yet a man of sense and courage,'[11] and we may reasonably infer that the shortcomings of the colonists were unjustly visited on his head. [Footnote 9: _Letters of Horace Walpole_, p. 461 (Letter of Aug. 28, 1755).] [Footnote 10: _Annual Register_, 1758, p. 4.] [Footnote 11: Wright's _Life of Wolfe_, p. 324.] [Sidenote: _Braddock's march on Fort Duquesne._] Late in February, 1755, the English troops and their commander reached Hampton in Virginia, at the entrance of Chesapeake Bay. In due course they were sent up the Potomac to Alexandria, where in April Braddock met the Governors of the various colonies, including Shirley, and settled with them the plan of campaign. He himself prepared to march on Fort Duquesne by the route which Washington had taken, but found endless difficulty in obtaining horses, wagons, and supplies. Virginia and Pennsylvania were still half-hearted, and inclined to think that the danger {237} of French invasion was a scare created in the interests of the Ohio Company. It was not the first time, and not the last, that a real crisis has been interpreted as the work of a designing few. However, a base was established, as before, at Fort Cumberland on Wills Creek, and early in June the march began.