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 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