[Sidenote: _The fort abandoned by the French and occupied by the English._] It was November before Forbes joined Bouquet at Loyalhannon. He was broken in body, but resolute to carry {286} through the expedition, in spite of the lateness of the season. The road had been cut to within easy reach of the French fort; and, on November 18, 2,500 men, picked out of the force, advanced in three columns, carrying with them only what was absolutely necessary in the way of supplies, and their brave commander on a litter. At a day's march from Fort Duquesne, it was reported that the fort had been evacuated and burnt; and when the English reached it on the twenty-fifth, they found that the news was true. Weakened by the desertion of the Indians, and by having disbanded some of the militia, whom he could not feed, in want of the provisions which Bradstreet had intercepted at Fort Frontenac, the French commander, De Ligneris, saw no alternative but to blow up the fort, and retreat more than a hundred miles up the Alleghany to the junction of that river with French Creek, leaving the valley of the Ohio in English hands, as events proved, for ever. [Sidenote: _Foundation of Pittsburg._] [Sidenote: _Death of Forbes._] For the moment Forbes' chief care was to build at once on the site of Fort Duquesne a temporary stockade, which could be held by a small garrison through the winter. In the following year a permanent fort was built. The name of Fort Duquesne was exchanged for that of Fort Pitt, and the city of Pittsburg still recalls the statesman who recovered for the British colonies the rich western lands which are watered by the Ohio. 'I have used the freedom of giving your name to Fort Duquesne,' wrote Forbes to Pitt two days after he had reached the fort, 'as I hope it was in some measure the being actuated by your spirit that now makes us masters of the place.'[42] The honest soldier, whom the English minister sent to do the work, and who did it when the colonies concerned should have done it for themselves, did not long survive his success. Patient and suffering, John Forbes was carried back to Philadelphia, where he {287} died in the following March, having shown a steadfast, single-minded devotion to duty, rare even in the rich record of British soldiers. [Footnote 42: Forbes to Pitt, Pittsburg, Nov. 27, 1758.] [Sidenote: _Results of the campaign of 1758._] [Sidenote: _Canada receives little help from France._]