Braddock's request, to concert a plan of military
operations--Governor Shirley, of Massachusetts; Lieutenant-Governor
Delancey, of New York; Lieutenant-Governor Sharpe, of Maryland;
Lieutenant-Governor Morris, of Pennsylvania. Washington was presented
to them in a manner that showed how well his merits were already
appreciated.

A grand council was held on the 14th of April, composed of General
Braddock, Commodore Keppel, and the governors. In discussing the
campaign, the governors were of opinion that New York should be made
the centre of operations, as it afforded easy access by water to the
heart of the French possessions in Canada. Braddock, however, did not
feel at liberty to depart from his instructions, which specified the
recent establishments of the French on the Ohio as the objects of his
expedition.

Niagara and Crown Point were to be attacked about the same time with
Fort Duquesne, the former by Governor Shirley, with his own and Sir
William Pepperell's regiments, and some New York companies; the latter
by Colonel William Johnson, sole manager and director of Indian
affairs--a personage worthy of especial note. He was a native of
Ireland, and had come out to this country in 1734 to manage the landed
estates owned by his uncle, Commodore Sir Peter Warren, in the Mohawk
country. By his agency and his dealings with the native tribes, he had
acquired great wealth, and become a kind of potentate in the Indian
country. His influence over the Six Nations was said to be unbounded.

The business of the Congress being finished, General Braddock would
have set out for Fredericktown, in Maryland, but few wagons or teams
had yet come to remove the artillery. Washington had looked with
wonder and dismay at the huge paraphernalia of war and the world of
superfluities to be transported across the mountains, recollecting the
difficulties he had experienced in getting over them with his nine
swivels and scanty supplies. "If our march is to be regulated by the
slow movements of the train," said he, "it will be tedious, very
tedious indeed."

In the meanwhile, Sir John St. Clair, who had returned to the
frontier, was storming at the camp at Fort Cumberland. The road
required of the Pennsylvania government had not been commenced. George
Croghan and the other commissioners were but just arrived in camp. Sir
John, according to Croghan, received them in a very disagreeable
manner, would not look at their draughts, nor suffer a