Before the war, Amherst did not believe that the Native Americans would offer any effective resistance to British rule. During that summer, he was convinced of the contrary. He ordered to "immediately ... put to death" captured enemy Native American warriors. To Colonel Henry Bouquet at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who was preparing to lead an expedition to relieve Fort Pitt, Amherst wrote on about June 29, 1763: "Could it not be contrived to send the smallpox among the disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on this occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them." Bouquet responded to Amherst (summer of 1763):