Sir William Johnson and his assistant in office, George Croghan, warned Amherst of the danger he was running in rousing the hatred of the savages.

Croghan in a letter to Bouquet said: 'I do not approve of General Amherst's plan of distressing them too much, as in my opinion they will not consider consequences if too much distressed, tho' Sir Jeffery thinks they will.' Although warnings were pouring in upon him, Amherst was of the opinion that there was 'no necessity for any more at the several posts than are just enough to keep up the communication, there being nothing to fear from the Indians in our present circumstances.' To Sir William Johnson he wrote that it was 'not in the power of the Indians to effect anything of consequence.' In the spring of 1763 the war-cloud was about to burst; but in remote New York the commander-in-chief failed to grasp the situation, and turned a deaf ear to those who warned him that an Indian war with all its horrors was inevitable.

These vague rumours, as Amherst regarded them, of an imminent general rising of the western tribes, took more definite form as the spring advanced.

Towards the end of March Lieutenant Edward Jenkins, the commandant of Fort Ouiatanon, learned that the French traders had been telling the Indians that the British would 'all be prisoners in a short time.' But what caused most alarm was information from Fort Miami of a plot for the capture of the forts and the slaughter of the garrisons.

A war-belt was received by the Indians residing near the fort, and with it came the request that they should hold themselves in readiness to attack the British.