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The Discovery of the Bones of the Father and Brother of Sir Peter Halket. The Artist proposed afterwards to paint a Picture of the Discovery of the Bones of the Halkets. He commences regularly as a Painter. He copies a St. Ignatius. He is induced to attempt Historical Portraiture. His Picture of the Trial of Susannah. Of the merits of that Picture.
In a letter of the same date addressed to Major Halket, aid of General Forbes, Colonel Washington thus expressed his forebodings of the mischiefs to be apprehended from the adoption of the proposed route. "I am just returned from a conference held with Colonel Bouquet.
As the troops approached, he pointed to the tree under which the officers had fallen. Captain West halted his men round the spot, and with Sir Peter Halket and the other officers, formed a circle, while the Indians removed the leaves which thickly covered the ground. The skeletons were found, as the Indian expected, lying across each other.
"What did the Captain do?" "Oh, as soon as Halket turned away he started swearing, but he got the tail of one oath hooked on to the head of another. It was nearly as good as Halket himself. And when he'd finished and got sane a bit, he said Halket was to walk up and down there all day and keep watch on the nigger.
There was a silence: he was picking the little fine feathers from the bird, and the Englishman was watching the ants. "Mind you," the Colonial said at last, "I don't say that in this case the Captain was to blame; Halket made an awful ass of himself. He's never been quite right since that time he got lost and spent the night out on the kopje.
We grumbled of course, among ourselves, but at the end of another fortnight the result of his work began to be apparent, and Sir Peter Halket, when he inspected us just before starting for Fort Cumberland, as the fortification at Will's Creek was named, expressed himself well pleased with the progress we had made.
Shortly afterwards he was joined there by Commodore Keppel, whose squadron of two ships-of-war, and several transports, had anchored in the Chesapeake. On board of these ships were two prime regiments of about five hundred men each; one commanded by Sir Peter Halket, the other by Colonel Dunbar; together with a train of artillery, and the necessary munitions of war.
Though colonel Dunbar was then near forty miles behind him, and his officers, particularly sir Peter Halket, earnestly entreated him to proceed with caution, and to employ the friendly Indians who were with him, by way of advanced guard, in case of ambuscades; yet he resumed his march the next day, without so much as endeavouring to obtain any intelligence of the situation or disposition of the enemy, or even sending out any scouts to visit the woods and thickets on both sides of him, as well as in front.
In the heart of the savage wood they found them in abundance, gnawed by wolves and foxes, and covered with the dead leaves of four successive autumns. Major Halket, of Forbes' staff, had joined the party; and, with the help of an Indian who was in the fight, he presently found two skeletons lying under a tree.
"And there was one William Halket there at that time also," he continued. Words which, as they fell upon the ear, seemed to be a stimulant so powerful as to produce a jerk in the organ; the dulness of the eyes seemed penetrated with something like light, and a tremor passed over her entire frame.
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