Cherokee Indians, but whether they would come he could not tell. On which the General asked me whether I could not send for some of the Delawares and Shawnese to Ohio. I told him I could; on which I sent a messenger to Ohio, who returned in eight days and brought with him the Chiefs of the Delawares. The General held a conference the Chiefs in company with those fifty I had brought with me, and made them a handsome present, & behav'd to them as kindly as he possibly could, during their stay, ordering me to let them want for nothing.
The Delawares promised, in Council, to meet the General on the road, as he marched out with a number of their warriors. But whether the former breaches of faith on the side of the English prevented them, or that they choose to see the event of the action between General Braddock and the French, I cannot tell; but they disappointed the General and did not meet him.
Two days after the Delaware Chiefs had left the camp at Fort Cumberland, Mr Gist's son returned from the Southward, where he had been sent by Govr Dinwiddie, but brought no Indians with him.
Soon after, the General was preparing for the march, with no more Indians than I had with me; when Coll. Innis[1] told the General that the women and children of the Indians that were to remain at Fort Cumberland, would be very troublesome, and that the General need
- ↑ Colonel James Innes was an elderly Scotch officer, who had served under the king's commission in the West Indies, and had settled in North Carolina. He commanded the contingent from that colony that came to the assistance of Virginia in 1754. On the death of Colonel Joshua Fry, Dinwiddie appointed Innes, who was his personal friend, to the position of commander-in-chief of the colonial army, of which Washington was acting commandant. Innes got no further than Fort Cumberland, where he remained as commander of the fort, alternately appealing to his former royal commission, and to his colonial authorization, for authority to maintain his rank.—Ed.
