proached it by a new route.1 They landed at Presquisle, built a log fort,2 carried their munitions across to the present French Creek, and built there another defence called Fort Le Bœuf.3 This put them during high water in easy communication by boat with the Alleghany River. French tact conciliated the Indians, and where that failed arrogance

Juquesne

was sufficient, and the expedition would have pushed on to found new forts, but sickness weakened the men, and Marin, the commander now dying, saw it was all he could do to hold the two forts, while he sent the rest of his force back to Montreal to recuperate. Late in the autumn Legardeur de Saint-Pierre arrived at Le Boeuf, as the successor of Marin. He had not been long there, when on the 11th of December a messenger from Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, with a small escort, presented himself at the fort. The guide of the party was Christopher Gist; the messenger was George Washington, then adjutant-general of the Virginia militia. Their business was to inform the French commander that he was building forts on English territory, and that he would do well to depart peaceably. Washington had been made conscious of the aggressive character of the French occupation, as he passed through the Indian town of Venango, at the confluence of French Creek and the Alleghany River, for he there had seen the French flag floating over the house of an English trader, Fraser, which the French had seized for an outpost of Le Boeuf, and there he had found Joncaire in command.5 Washington had been received by Joncaire hospitably, and over his wine the Frenchman had disclosed the unmistakable purpose of his government. At Le Boeuf Washington tarried three days, during which Saint-Pierre framed his reply, which was in effect that he must hold his post, while Dinwiddie's letter was sent to the French commander at Quebec. It was the middle of February, 1754, when Washington reached Williamsburg on his return, and made his report to Dinwiddie.

1 See papers on the early routes between the Ohio and Lake Erie in Mag. of Amer. Hist., i. 683, ii. 52 (Nov., 1877, and Jan., 1878); and also in Bancroft's United States, orig. ed., iii. 346. For the portage by the Sandusky, Sciota, and Ohio rivers, see Darlington's ed. of Col. James Smith's Remarkable Occurrences, p. 174. The portages from Lake Erie were later discovered than those from Lake Michigan. For these latter earlier ones, see Vol. IV. pp. 200, 224. Cf. the map from Colden given herewith.

2 The ruins of this fort are still to be seen (1855) within the town of Erie. Sargent's Braddock's Expedition, p. 41. Cf. Egle's Pennsylva

nia.

8 Now Waterford, Erie Co., Penna.

4 The road over the mountains followed by Washington is identified in Lowdermilk's Cumberland, p. 51.

5 Sargent says the ruins of the fort which the French completed in 1755 at Venango were still (1855) to be seen at Franklin, Penna.; it was 400 feet square, with embankments then eight feet high. Sargent's Braddock's Exped., p. 41; Day, Hist. Coll. Penna., 312, 642. There is a notice of the original engineer's draft of the fort in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., ix. 248-249. Cf. S. J. M. Eaton's Centennial Discourse in Venango County, 1876; and Egle's Pennsylvania, pp. 694, 1122, where there is (p. 1123) a plan of the fort.

The result was that Dinwiddie drafted two hundred men from the Virginia militia, and despatched them under Washington to build a fort at the forks of the Ohio. The Virginia assembly, forgetting for the moment its quarrel with the governor, voted £10,000 to be expended, but only under the direction of a committee of its own. Dinwiddie found difficulty in getting the other colonies to assist, and the Quaker element in Pennsylvania prevented that colony from being the immediate helper, which it might from its position have become.

Meanwhile, some backwoodsmen had been pushed over the mountains and had set to work on a fort at the forks. A much larger French force under Contrecœur soon summoned them,1 and the English retired. The French immediately began the erection of

Fort Duquesne.

While this was doing, Dinwiddie was toil

ing with tardy assemblies and their agents

Contrecœur

to organize a regiment to support the backwoodsmen. Joshua Fry was to be its colonel, with Washington as second in command. The latter, with a portion of the men, had already pushed forward to Will's Creek, the present Cumberland. Later he advanced with 150 men to Great Meadows, where he learned that the French, who had been reinforced, had sent out a party from their new fort, marching towards him. Again he got word from an Indian-who, from his tributary character towards the Iroquois, was called Half-King, and who had been Washington's companion on his trip to Le Bœuf - that this chieftain with some followers had tracked two men to a dark glen, where he believed the French party were lurking. Washington started with forty men to join Half-King, and under his guidance they approached the glen and found the French. Shots were exchanged. The French leader, Jumonville, was killed, and all but one of his. followers were taken or slain.

he

The mission of Jumonville was to scour for English, by order of Contrecœur, now in command of Duquesne, and to bear a summons to any could find, warning them to retire from French territory. The precipitancy of Washington's attack gave the French the chance to impute to Washington the crime of assassination; but it seems to have been a pretence on the part of the French to cover a purpose which Jumonville had of summoning aid from Duquesne, while his concealment was intended to shield him till its arrival. Rash or otherwise, this onset of the youthful Washington began the war.

The English returned to Great Meadows, and while waiting for reinforcements from Fry, Washington threw up some entrenchments, which he called Fort Necessity. The men from Fry came without their leader,

1 This summons is in Mass. Hist. Coll., vi. 141. Cf. N. Y. Col. Docs., vi. 840.

who had sickened and died, and Washington, succeeding to the command of the regiment, found himself at the head of three hundred men, increased soon by an independent company from South Carolina.

Washington again advanced toward Gist's settlement, when, fearing an attack, he sent back for Mackay, whom he had left with a company of regulars at Fort Necessity. Rumors thickening of an advance of the French, the English leader again fell back to Great Meadows, resolved

to fight there. It was now the first of July, 1754. Coulon de Villiers, a brother of Jumonville, was now advancing from Duquesne. The attack was made on a rainy day, and for much of the time a thick mist hung between

the combatants. After dark a parley resulted in Washington's accepting terms offered by the French, and the English marched out with the honors of war.1

The young Virginian now led his weary followers back to Will's Creek. It was a dismal march. The Indian allies of the French, who were only with difficulty prevented from massacring the wounded English, had been allowed to kill the cattle and horses of the little army; and Washington's men had to struggle along under the burdens of their own disabled companions. Thus they turned their backs upon the great valley, in which not an English flag now waved.

Appearances were not grateful to Dinwiddie. His house of burgesses preferred to fight him on some domestic differences rather than to listen to his appeals to resist the French. He got little sympathy from the other colonies. The Quakers and Germans of Pennsylvania cared little for boundaries. New York and Maryland seemed slothful.2 Only Shirley, far away in Massachusetts, was alive, but he was busy at home. The Lords of Trade in London looked to William Johnson to appease and attach the Indians; but lest he could not accomplish everything, they directed a congress of the colonial representatives to be assembled at Albany, which talked, but to the liking neither of their constituents nor of the government in England.*

Dinwiddie, despairing of any organized onset, appealed to the home government. The French king was diligently watching for the English ministry's response. So when Major-General Braddock and his two regiments sailed from England for Virginia, and the Baron Dieskau and an army,

with the Marquis of Vaudreuil 1 to succeed Duquesne as governor, sailed for Quebec, the diplomates of the two crowns bowed across the Channel, and protested to each other it all meant nothing.

The English thought that with their superiority on the sea they could intercept the French armament, and Admiral Boscawen was sent to hover about the Gulf of St. Lawrence. He got only three ships of them, the rest eluding him.

The two armies were to enter the great valleys, one of the St. Lawrence, the other of the Ohio, but not in direct opposition. Dieskau was hurled back at Lake George; Braddock on the Monongahela. We must follow their fortunes.

In February, 1755, Braddock landed at Hampton, Virginia, and presently he and Dinwiddie were living "in great harmony." A son of Shirley of Massachusetts was serving Braddock as secretary, and he was telling a correspondent how "disqualified his general was for the service he was employed in, in almost every respect." This was after the young man had seen his father, for Braddock had gone up to Alexandria 2 in April, and had there summoned for a conference all the governors of the colonies, Shirley among the rest, the most active of them all, ambitious of military renown, and full of plans to drive the French from the continent. The council readily agreed to the main points of an aggressive campaign. Braddock was to reduce Fort Duquesne; Shirley was to capture Niagara. An army of provincials under William Johnson was to seize Crown Point. These three movements we are now to consider; a fourth, an attack by New Englanders upon the Acadian peninsula, and the only one which succeeded, is chronicled in another chapter.3

Braddock's first mistake was in moving by the Potomac, instead of across Pennsylvania, where a settled country would have helped him; but this error is said to have been due to the Quaker merchant John Hanbury. He cajoled the Duke of Newcastle into ordering this way, because Hanbury, as a proprietor in the Ohio Company, would profit by the trade which the Virginia route would bring to that corporation. Dinwiddie's desire to develop the Virginia route to the Ohio had doubtless quite as much to do with the choice. While plagued with impeded supplies and the want of conveyance as he proceeded, Braddock chafed at the Pennsylvanian indifference which looked on, and helped him not. He wished New England was nearer. The way Pennsylvania finally aided the doomed general was through Benjamin Franklin, whom she had borrowed of New England. He urged the Pennsylvania farmers to supply wagons, and they did, and Braddock began his march. On the 10th of May he was at Will's Creek, with

1 Cf. Le Château de Vaudreuil, by A. C. de Lery Macdonald in Rev. Canadienne, new ser., iv. pp. 1, 69, 165; Daniel's Nos Gloires, 73.

2 A view of the house in Alexandria used as headquarters by Braddock is in Appleton's Four nal, x. p. 785.

8 See chapter vii.

4

4 This was now Fort Cumberland. There is a drawn plan of it noted in the Catal. of the King's Maps (Brit. Mus.), i. 282. Parkman (i. 200) describes it. The Sparks Catal., p. 207, notes a sketch of the "Situation of Fort Cumberland," drawn by Washington, July, 1755.

2,200 men, and as his aids he had about him Captains Robert Orme and Roger Morris, and Colonel George Washington. Braddock invested the camp with an atmosphere little seductive to Indian allies. There were fifty of them present at one time, but they dwindled to eight in the end.1 Braddock's disregard had also driven off a notorious ranger, Captain Jack, who would have been serviceable if he had been wanted.

On the 10th of June the march was resumed, — a long, thin line, struggling with every kind of difficulty in the way, and making perhaps three

or four miles a day. By Washington's advice, Braddock took his lighter troops and pushed ahead, leaving Colonel Dunbar to follow more deliber

1 Sargent summarizes the points that are known relative to the unfortunate management of the Indians which deprived Braddock of their services. Sargent, pp. 168, 310; Penna. Archives, ii. 259, 308, 316, 318, 321; vi. 130, 134, 140, 146, 189, 218, 257, 353, 398, 443; Penna. Col. Rec., vi. 375, 397, 460; Olden Time, ii. 238; Sparks' Franklin, i. 189; Penna. Mag. of History, Oct.,

1885, p. 334. Braddock had promised to receive the Indians kindly. Penna. Archives, ii. 290.

2 After a water-color sketch in the Mass. Ar chives: Documents collected in France, vol. ix p. 499. The coat is blue, faced with red.

3 After a water-color sketch in the Mass. Ar chives: Documents collected in France, vol. ix p. 377. The coat is of a steel gray, trimmed with blue and orange.