At length Washington, to his great relief, received orders to repair to Fort Cumberland. He reached that frontier fort on the 2d of July, and immediately commenced cutting a road through the forest, a distance of thirty miles, to Raystown, where Colonel Bouquet was stationed. Scouting parties of Indians were ranging the woods, firing upon the workmen, and upon the expresses passing between the posts, and worrying the laborers in every possible way. Washington succeeded in engaging the services of a band of Cherokee warriors, whom he sent out in counter parties against the hostile Indians. Colonel Bouquet thought that no one but an American could be guilty of the folly of imagining that Cherokee warriors could, in any emergence, be equal to British regulars. He insisted that each party should be accompanied by an English officer and a number of English soldiers. Washington was annoyed by the encumbrance, but was obliged to yield. He said: “Small parties of Indians will more effectually harass the enemy, by keeping them under continual alarms, than any parties of white men can do. For small parties of the latter are not equal to the task, not being so dexterous at skulking as the Indians. And large parties will be discovered by their spies early enough to have a superior force opposed to them.”[48] While affairs were moving thus slowly, Washington was quite enthusiastically chosen, by the electors of Frederick county, as their representative to the House of Burgesses. On the 21st of July, tidings arrived of the capture of Louisbourg, and the island of Cape Breton, by the English. This increased the impatience of Washington to be on the move. The rumor reached him that Colonel Bouquet intended to send a body of eight hundred troops in advance toward the fort. He immediately wrote to the Colonel, entreating that his command might be included in the detachment. “If any argument,” said he, “is needed, to obtain this favor, I hope, without vanity, I may be allowed to say, that from long intimacy with these woods, and frequent scoutings in them, my men are at least as well acquainted with all the passes and difficulties as any troops that will be employed.” Notwithstanding the remonstrances of Washington, and the indignation of the Virginia Assembly, Colonel Bouquet persisted in his plan of cutting a new road over the mountains, to Fort Duquesne. Sixteen hundred men were sent forward, from Raystown, to engage in the work. Thus July and August passed away; Washington was still encamped at Fort Cumberland, in the extreme of impatience, with nothing to do. He learned, by his spies, that on the 13th of August there were but eight hundred men, Indians included, at Fort Duquesne. There can be no question, that had Washington’s counsels been followed, the fort would, by that time, have been in the hands of the British.