I was glad to get away at last, for when Joncaire found the Half-King, who was hid away in my camp, which I had made in the woods at a distance, he got the poor savage drunk with rum and loaded him with gifts. Four days later, and very tired, I was at French Creek, where was a great fort, fifteen miles from Lake Erie. Much against my will, Joncaire had sent with me La Force, as great a lover of mischief as could be found. This fellow was the leanest man I ever saw, and saddle-coloured. When he spoke to me he stared constantly, which is as unpleasant as to avoid entirely to meet a man’s gaze. He made no end of trouble, and had later his reward, and perhaps more punishment than he deserved.
I met at this station many educated French officers, such as I was to make welcome at another time. I could not avoid to be pleased with the commandant, by name Legardeur de St. Pierre, a chevalier of St. Louis. He was an old soldier, very tall and straight, and with much grey hair, and had lost an eye in battle. This gentleman was most courteous, and had brisk, pleasing ways, very frank and outspoken. He desired to be remembered to Lord Fairfax, whom he had known in Paris long ago.
The chevalier, by good fortune, spoke English enough to make his company very agreeable, and I became sure, as I spent some days in his society, that he made no attempt to deceive me; for nothing could have been more plain than that he meant to hold the country for his king.
He was pleased to relate his campaigns in Europe, and, although he was apt, like old soldiers, to be lengthy as to these, I found him to be instructive.
He talked lightly of women, but so did his officers, and in a manner we in Virginia should have considered to be unmannerly or worse. Also he told me that the French encouraged their soldiers to take wives among the young squaws, a thing our people never inclined to do. He seemed to have known many English gentlemen who had been in Paris, and even why Lord Fairfax had left England, all of which story I could have heard from him if I had thought proper so to do, which I did not. He did say, and was very merry about it, that if a woman drove his lordship to America, another might drive him back, for, after all, we were only shuttlecocks, and were knocked to and fro by the women――and I might say so to his lordship with the chevalier’s compliments.