The repeated inroads of the savages had driven nearly all the inhabitants out of the beautiful valley of the Shenandoah. The woes which these poor fugitives endured cannot well be imagined. It was the object of the British government, not only to expel the French from the valley of the Ohio, but also from the valley of the St. Lawrence. The necessity of collecting troops from Pennsylvania and Virginia, to attack the French in Canada, greatly weakened the power of the Americans in the more southern States, to protect their homes. Every man who attains celebrity pays a heavy price for the attainment. Washington, in one of his hours of anguish, when he was thwarted in his most important plans, and assailed by a constant torrent of abuse, wrote, in reference to a very unwelcome order he had received: “The late order reverses, confuses, and incommodes everything; to say nothing of the extraordinary expense of carriage, disappointments, losses, and alterations which must fall heavily upon the country. Whence it arises, or why, I am truly ignorant. But my strongest representations of matters relative to the peace of the frontiers are disregarded as idle and frivolous; my propositions and measures as partial and selfish; and all my sincerest endeavors, for the service of my country, are perverted to the worst purposes. My orders are dark, doubtful, uncertain; to-day approved, to-morrow condemned. “Left to act and proceed at hazard, accountable for the consequences, and blamed without the benefit of defence, if you can think my situation capable of exciting the smallest degree of envy, or affording the least satisfaction, the truth is yet hidden from you, and you entertain notions very different from the case.”[46] Care, exposure, and sorrow threw Washington into a burning fever. He retired to Mount Vernon, where he was reduced very low, and four months passed away before he was able to resume his command. This was on the 1st of March, 1758. Much to the relief of Washington, Governor Dinwiddie, in January, had sailed for England. The Earl of Loudon succeeded him. But, busily engaged in organizing an expedition for the invasion of Canada, the earl did not immediately enter upon the duties of his office in Virginia. William Pitt was now prime minister of Great Britain. As one of his first measures, in the year 1758 a strong expedition was organized, consisting of six thousand men, to march against Fort Duquesne. General Forbes was appointed to the command of the whole force. Virginia raised two thousand troops. These were divided into two regiments. Washington, who had been appointed by the Assembly, commander-in-chief of all the Virginia troops, was also colonel of the first regiment. Colonel Byrd led the second. Colonel Bouquet, in command of the British regulars, was in the advance, marshalling his forces in the centre of Pennsylvania.