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 CHAPTER IV

O many are the versions of the story of the building of Forbes's Road through Pennsylvania that it was with utmost interest that the present writer took up the task of examining the only sources of reliable information: the correspondence of General Forbes, Colonel Bouquet, and Sir John St. Clair, as preserved in the Bouquet Papers at the British Museum, and at the British Public Records Office. While these letters were supplemented by frequent personal interviews which have never been recorded, yet the testimony given by them is overwhelming that, until the very last, both men, Forbes and Bouquet, were quite undecided what route to Fort Duquesne was most practicable; both were open to conviction, and were equally disinterested parties, thinking only of the good of the cause to which both soon gave their lives.