On the 10th of May Braddock reached his base at the junction of Wills' Creek with the Potomac, where the former trading station had been supplanted by a fort built of logs and called, in honour of the Commander-in-Chief, by the name of Fort Cumberland. It was a mere clearing in a vast forest, an oasis, as it has happily been termed, in a wilderness of leaves.[257] Here the troops had already been assembled, the Forty-fourth and Forty-eighth, each now raised by recruits from Virginia to a strength of seven hundred men, a detachment of one hundred of the Royal Artillery, thirty sailors lent by Commodore Keppel, helpful men as are all of their kind, and four hundred and fifty Virginian militia, excellently fitted for the work before them but much despised by the regular troops. The whole force amounted to about twenty-two hundred men. Fifty Indian warriors, a source of unfailing interest to the bucolic British soldiers, were also seen in the camp in all their barbaric finery of paint and feathers; for Braddock, whatever his bigotry in favour of pipe-clay, was far too wise to underrate the value of Indian scouts. [Sidenote: May 3.] [Sidenote: June 7.] A long month of delay followed, for the cannon did not arrive until a week later than Braddock, and the arrangements were still backward and confused. The General, doubtless with good reason, railed furiously at the roguery and ill-faith of the contractors; but it is sufficiently evident that what was lacking at headquarters was a talent for organisation. And meanwhile, though Braddock knew it not, events of incalculable moment were going forward elsewhere during those very weeks. The French had not failed to take note of the reinforcements sent by England to America, and had replied by equipping a fleet of eighteen ships and embarking three thousand troops to sail under their convoy to Canada. The departure of this fleet was long delayed, and the dilatory British Government had time to despatch two squadrons to intercept it; but the French, putting to sea at last in May, contrived to elude the British cruisers and arrived safely at Louisburg and Quebec. Three only of their ships, having lagged behind the rest, found themselves off Cape Race in the presence of Admiral Boscawen's squadron. The two nations were nominally at peace, but the fleets opened fire, and the engagement ended in the capture of two of the French ships. Whether Newcastle desired it or not, England by this act was irrevocably committed to war. [Sidenote: June 10.] [Sidenote: June 16.]