delivered on both sides." Leaders of Pickawillany were invited to attend a conference at Logstown in May 1751, where Croghan distributed gifts and further cemented the relationship between the English and the Ohio Valley Indian communities. On 1 March, as Gist was preparing to leave Pickawillany, the speaker of the Miamis sent a message to Governor Dinwiddie, which began: "Brothers our Hearts are glad that you have taken notice of Us, and surely Brothers we hope that you will Order a Smith to settle here to mend our Guns and Hatchets." By mid-1752 a gunsmith (Thomas Burney) and a blacksmith were working at Pickawillany, employed by Croghan. Burney had previously established a forge at the Wyandot community of Muskingum, where Gist had met him in December 1750. French plans to attack Pickawillany Céloron de Blainville's failed attempt to persuade Memeskia to return to French loyalty led to the French decision to attack the village, as a punishment and a warning to other Native communities defecting to the English. Soon after Céloron's return, reports of French military movements began to alarm English colonial authorities. In July 1751, reports reached Governor George Clinton of New York that a French force of "twelve Hundred French & Two Hundred of Orondacks passed by Oswego about a fortnight ago with a design to cut off (as I understand) some of the Nations of Indians to the Westward, who are Strongly attached to the British Interest, also to Stop the Philadelphians building at, or near Ohio." Benjamin Stoddert reported to Sir William Johnson that "two hundred Orondack Indians under the command of Monsieur Belletre and Chevalier Longville ... design against a village of the Twightwees where the English are building a trading-house." Two escaped English prisoners, Morris Turner and Ralph Kilgore, reported to Governor Dinwiddie "that in the Spring an army of five hundred Frenchmen would march to Ohio, and either bring back the Shawnees and Owendats (Wyandots) or kill them." In fact, French troops and Ottawa warriors under the command of Céloron de Blainville assembled at Detroit, but the Indians complained that the force did not have sufficient strength to attack Pickawillany and refused to proceed. In late 1751, François-Marie Picoté de Belestre led a raiding party of seventeen warriors to Pickawillany, but found the town nearly deserted, as most of the population was away hunting. They captured two English traders and killed a Miami