At his landing at Quebec Vaudreuil found not less than twelve thousand soldiers in Canada to defend the claims of his King. But that was a long frontier to man, from Quebec to New Orleans, and in April only about one thousand men were forwarded to defend the Ohio river. Of these Contrecoeur had not more than three hundred, probably less. The summer before he had two thousand defenders, but Duquesne, blindly trusting to the ephemeral league he had made with the Alleghenies, had not been liberal again. In vain Contrecoeur sent messages northward to Venango and Presque Isle. Riviere aux Boeufs was as dry as the Youghiogheny. Inevitable surrender or capitulation stared the French commander in the face. Even the crowds of Indians within hail were not to be reckoned on; they were terrified at the proportions of Braddock's army. Accordingly, Contrecoeur made his arrangements for a capitulation, as Washington had done one year ago. Braddock had accomplished the impossible; the Indians were demoralized and took to "cooking and counciling"; Fort Duquesne was as good as captured. On the seventh Braddock reached Brush Fork of Turtle Creek, but the country immediately between him and the Ohio was so rough that the army turned westward and pitched its nineteenth encampment in Long Run valley two miles from the Monongahela. Here Washington came up with the army in a covered wagon, still weak but ready to move with the army in the morning and sleep in Duquesne that night. The whole army was infused with this hope as the ninth of July dawned. For no one questioned Braddock's success if he could once throw that army across the mountains. No one knew the situation better than Washington, and early in the campaign he wrote his brother: "As to any danger from the enemy, I look upon it as trifling." In London profane wits cited Scripture (Ezekiel xxxv: 1-10) to justify the conquest of the Ohio valley: "Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me saying, Son of man, set thy face against Mount Seir and prophesy against it, and say unto it, thus saith the Lord God: Behold, O mount Seir, I am against thee and I will stretch out mine hand against thee and I will make thee most desolate.... Because thou hast said, These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it." Already subscription papers were being passed about in Philadelphia to provide festal fires to illumine the Quaker City when the news of Braddock's victory came. "Why, the d--l," exclaimed one of the enthusiasts to that odd man Franklin who did not sign his name at once, "you surely don't suppose the fort will not be taken?" "I don't know it will not be taken," replied the Postmaster-General, "but I know that the events of war are subject to great uncertainty." A jingling ballad in Chester County, Pennsylvania, was spreading throughout the frontier. It ran, in part: