When, in the afternoon about six o’clock, I was released from duty, I walked through the camps with Sir Peter Halket. The men were cleaning their guns and brushing their clothes and soaping queues and pipe-claying, all as if for parade and very needless. Sir Peter, a man of excellent parts and a good soldier, had expressed himself in the council as averse to the plan of march. When he asked after my health and if I had again regained my strength, I replied that I was fit for duty, but had been better if I had been able to sleep. He said with gravity that many would sleep soundly to-morrow and that he was sure he himself would be killed. This seemed strange to me, and I could only reply that I did not think I should be killed, but that we might both be wrong; and yet both of us were right, for these matters are in the hands of the great Disposer of Events, and have never troubled me on going into battle. One of my aides in the Revolutionary War, Colonel Scammel, to whom I was much attached, did always believe he would be killed, as indeed happened, at last, to my sorrow, at Yorktown. Dr. Craik was with me that evening and found me chilled and full of aches; but notwithstanding a potion he gave me, I slept ill again, and was aroused in the morning by my good doctor. He advised a glass of rum, for which I felt the better, and when I had eaten and was in the saddle I repaired to where was General Braddock, a short distance from the shore. He was in a gay humour and very kind, asking if I felt well and would drink with him to the King that evening in the French fort. I could do no more than reply that to do so would give me great pleasure. I was presently sent down to the shore with a message, and there saw Colonel Gage crossing the shallow ford to some open meadow-lands on the farther side. He was to secure the two fords by which the whole force following him was to cross and then recross, so as to be again on the same side of the river as Fort Duquesne. After him, about four o’clock, came Sir John St. Clair, with carpenters――or, as we should say, axemen――and engineers, some three hundred in all. I lingered a few moments and saw the last of the advance, as they marched up from the farther bank of the river and their red coats disappeared into the forest beyond the ford, which was, I thought, well chosen and shallow. Before I went back, Gist, the trader, and Captain Croghan came to speak to me. I remarked that we had done well to come so far without more trouble from the Indians. Gist laughed and said: “They have never left us since we dropped you at the Youghiogheny.” Then Croghan cried out, “There they are,” and there was a sound of musketry beyond the river. It proved to be a small body of savages, easily dispersed by Gage. It being then about six o’clock A.M., the signal to fall in, which we call the “general,” was beat, and the main body fell in with fresh cartridges.