[Sidenote: _The expedition against Fort Duquesne._] By the end of October campaigning was over for the year in the east, and in the centre; but it was not so in the west, where Brigadier-General Forbes was marching on Fort Duquesne. [Sidenote: _General Forbes._] Forbes was an older man than the other English commanders, who achieved success in the war; and he seems to have been over sixty in the year 1758.[38] He proved himself to be a man of great fortitude and resolution, tactful in dealing with colonists or Indians, a brave, sure, and careful soldier. His task was to give security to the harried frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania, and to clear the French out of the Ohio valley. With this end he had to collect and equip a force, the large majority of whom were provincials; to get money and men out of two colonies, which were very jealous alike of the mother country and of {284} each other; to make choice between two conflicting routes, and to detach the Ohio Indians as far as possible from the French cause. [Footnote 38: For his age see Kingsford's _History of Canada_, vol. iv, p. 192, note. He has been generally put down as a younger man.] [Sidenote: _Reasons why the expedition made slow progress._] A long time was taken over the preliminaries, and over the expedition itself, the object of which was not attained until the end of November; but the delays were not only the consequence of want of transport, and of Forbes' own ill health, they were also the result of design. The longer the English kept their enemies waiting to be attacked, the fewer those enemies were likely to be; for the Indians, and the militia of New France, did not love to keep the field for any long time together. Moreover, as Forbes wrote to Pitt,[39] October and November were the best hunting months for the Indians, which they were therefore not willing to devote to war; while, on the other hand, they were months when the leaves fell and left the backwoods easier to reconnoitre and less easy for ambuscade. [Footnote 39: Letter of Forbes to Pitt, Oct. 20, 1758.] [Sidenote: _Preparation for advance._] [Sidenote: _A new route taken._]