Few who had been watching the western situation believed but that spring would bring war. The Indians did not even keep the promised truce. Major Adair, encamped beside the "Bloody Way" within sight of Fort St. Clair, was murderously attacked by Indians early in the morning of November 6. Six whites were killed and five wounded and a large number of packhorses purloined. However few attacks such as this occurred along the frontier. In March, President Washington appointed the commissioners who were to treat with the Indians at the rapids of the Maumee "when the leaves are fully out." Benjamin Lincoln, Beverly Randolph, and Timothy Pickering were appointed, and received their commissions April 26. General Lincoln left on the twenty-seventh with the baggage for Niagara by way of the Mohawk Valley; Pickering and Randolph left Philadelphia by way of the Susquehanna on April 30. On the same day another delegation departed from the upper Ohio for the West but not altogether on a peaceful mission; it was Wayne's army, disciplined, hardened, and eager for the long-anticipated conflict. To Wayne, war seemed inevitable; when informed that the commissioners were to be sent to the Maumee according to agreement, he playfully expressed a desire to be present "with 2500 of his commissioners in company, with not a single Quaker among them!" Before leaving Legionville he had ordered a number of color flags for the sub-legions of the Secretary of War saying, with the confidence of a man who could not but win, "they shall never be lost." Thus the third army of the United States floated down the winding Ohio in April, 1793. No other army on the Ohio, since the day Forbes's and Bouquet's British regulars left Fort Pitt, could be compared with it in discipline and trustworthiness. Harmar's and St. Clair's armies were rabbles beside it. Yet there had been a great struggle to secure proper subordination of officers and proper loyalty on the part of the rank and file. Liberty meant license on the frontier, and here lay Wayne's heaviest task and greatest victory. With a trained, sober army victory was a matter of time only. However, the Government still looked for a happy outcome of the convention at the rapids of the Maumee; and Wayne was strictly ordered to make no hostile movement until the result of that meeting was known. It was expected that, by August 1, the question of war or peace would have been decided. Wayne landed, and encamped about a mile below Fort Washington, where the high waters left only one convenient spot, which was accordingly dubbed "Hobson's Choice." The encampment extended to within four hundred yards of the village of Cincinnati, according to the Posey journal. From this village and its stock "of ardent spirit and caitiff wretches to dispose of it" Wayne was anxious to be separated.