The Indians destroyed several of the smaller British forts, but Fort Pitt (present-day Pittsburgh, Pa.) held out under the command of Captain Simeon Ecuyer, a 22-year veteran Swiss mercenary in the British service. Ecuyer, whose native language was French, also spoke German, the predominant language of his native Switzerland; the British had retained him because many settlers in Pennsylvania also spoke German. Smallpox had broken out among the British garrison, and during a parley on June 24, 1763, Ecuyer gave besieging Lenape warriors several items taken from smallpox patients. “We gave them two blankets and a handkerchief out of the smallpox hospital,” Captain William Trent of the garrison militia wrote in his journal. “I hope it will have the desired effect.”
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