From almost any view-point the scheme of conquest seems a glaring inconsistency, but from what is this so conspicuous as by looking upon this French line of fortresses as a serpent whose head was Quebec, whose heart was Fort Niagara, and whose tail rattled luringly on the Ohio at Fort Duquesne? The chief expedition, on which the eyes of the ministry were centred, was the one which launched at this serpent's tail. Moreover, in addition to being wrongly directed it was improperly routed, since there were both waggons and wheat in Pennsylvania but comparatively none in Virginia, and the ill-fated commander of the expedition, General Edward Braddock, was the victim of the lethargy and indifference of the colonies. It is pitifully interesting to observe in the letter of instruction issued by Cumberland to Braddock that the latter seemed to have held the view that his most proper course was to strike at Niagara at the outset, undoubtedly appreciating the significant fact that to capture that key position of communication was to doom the Allegheny line of forts to starvation itself. "As to your design," read those instructions, "of making yourself master of Niagara, which is of the greatest consequence, his Royal Highness recommends you to leave nothing to chance in the prosecution of that enterprise." In all that was planned for this grand campaign those words give us the only hint of Braddock's own notion.[27] Those instructions also advise that if the Ohio campaign should progress slowly Braddock was to consider whether he should not give over the command of that campaign to another officer and proceed to Niagara. Nothing could illustrate more clearly than this the importance of the position of Niagara in the old French War. But as Braddock did not deem it wise to give over the command of the Ohio campaign, Governor Shirley was left in charge of it. The Northern campaigns, however, were of little more success than that of the ill-fated Braddock. True, Johnson won his knighthood beside the lake to which he gave his master's name, but the victory was as much of an accident as was Braddock's defeat, and was not followed up with the capture of the forts on Lake Champlain which was the object of the campaign. Shirley, on the other hand, made an utter failure of his _coup_, after reaching Oswego with incredible hardship; the news of Braddock's defeat demoralised whatever spirit was left in his sickly army; and Fort Niagara was not even threatened. We note here again the interdependence of the Braddock and Shirley campaigns, and the pity that the two armies could not have been combined for a strong movement against Fort Niagara. The Ohio fortress could not have existed with the line of communication once cut, and Braddock's as well as Forbes's campaigns, costing such tremendous sums, would have been unnecessary--or Prideaux's in '59 either, for that matter.