In this same letter Bouquet wrote, concerning the general situation: "You will see from the extract appended from Major Armstrong's letters the report he makes thereupon. All seems practicable and even easy, but I put too little confidence in the observations of a young man without experience to act upon his judgement. I have therefore sent Colonel Burd, Rhor and Captain Ward to reconnoitre the Allegheny, to make an examination of all the difficulties, and thus put me into a position to decide what reliance is to be placed on the rest of the discoveries. Unfortunately they have found things very different, and this mountain which these gentlemen crossed so easily is worse than Seydeling Hill, and the ascent much longer. Considering that it was impossible to cut a waggon road on this slope without immense labour, they searched along the mountain for another pass, and found about two miles to the North a gap of which no one was aware.... It seems that, with much labour, one might make a much easier road there than the other; it remains to be seen what obstacles are still to be encountered before Loyal Hanning. Sir John has arrived, and I have communicated to him all I know on the subject; and he starts today or tomorrow morning with Colonel Burd, Rhor and 200 men to reconnoitre this gap, and the whole route as far as Loyal Hanning. He will spend 6 or 7 days on this survey, and I hope on his return you will be able to form a decision. And, in order that no time may be lost, I will make a commencement of the work if the thing is practicable without awaiting your orders. I have thought it best not to do so up to the present, in order not to lay ourselves open to public reflections if we commenced and abandoned different routes. I agree with you that you cannot take the Cumberland route untill you are in a position to demonstrate the impossibility of finding another road, or at any rate the impossibility of opening one without risking the expedition by too great an expenditure of time. We are in a cruel position, if you are reduced to a single line of communication. It is 64 miles from Cumberland to Gist, and there are only three places capable of furnishing forage sufficient for the army; the rest would not suffice for a single night. The frost, which commences at the end of October, destroys all the grass, and the rivers overflowing in the spring cut off all communication.... If we open a new route, we have not enough axes." On the same day Forbes wrote Bouquet by the hand of Halket a decisive letter in which he said: "he [Forbes] thinks that no time should be lost in making the new Road, he has directed me to inform you that you are immediately to begin the opening of it agreeable to the manner he wrote to you in his last letter, as he sees all the advantages he can propose by going that Route, and will avoid innumerable Inconveniencys he would encounter was he to go the other, he is at the same time extremely