left, brought back our thoughts home to ourselves, but the well trained horses seeming to know exactly where they should place their feet, soon removed us from the object of terror, and without stopping, trotted directly with the stage and us into the ferry flat, which was prepared to receive us—after which, ten minutes sufficed to land us at Pittsburgh.
CHAPTER XXXVII
Pittsburgh—Panorama round it
At the conflux of the rivers Allegheny and Monongahela,
the French when possessed of Canada, had the principal of
a line of posts extending from that country round the back
frontier of the British settlements, for the purposes of awing
the aborigines and commanding their trade, and to prevent
the spreading of the Anglo-American colonization beyond
these limits. It was named Fort Du Quesne, after the
Marquis Du Quesne, a governour of Canada. It was always
kept well garrisoned by European troops, and in time of war,
was never without an army of auxiliary Indians encamped
under its protection. This continual state of preparation cost
the British much blood. In the year 1757, general Grant,
with a regiment of eight hundred Scotch highlanders,
arrived without discovery on a hill immediately commanding
the fort, since named after him Grant's hill, where thinking
himself secure of conquest, he alarmed the enemy by
beating the reveille at sunrise. The garrison, without
awaiting {220} to be attacked in the fort, which would not
have been tenable, and reinforced by a strong body of Indians,
stole out under the high river banks, and divided itself into
two parties, one of which took the route upwards of the
Monongahela, and the other that of the Allegheny, until
they flanked Grant's little army, when profiting by the
woods, with which the hill and surrounding country were
