acknowledge a provincial officer as his superior. He encamped separately, kept separate guards, would not agree that Washington should assign any rallying-place for his men in case of alarm, and objected to receiving from him the parole and countersign, though necessary for their common safety.

Washington conducted himself with circumspection, avoiding everything that might call up a question of command, and reasoning calmly whenever such question occurred, but he urged the governor by letter to prescribe their relative rank and authority. "He thinks you have not a power to give commissions that will command him. If so, I can very confidently say that his absence would tend to the public advantage."

On June 11th, Washington resumed the laborious march to Redstone creek. As Captain Mackay could not oblige his men to work on the road unless they were allowed a shilling sterling a day, and as Washington did not choose to pay this, nor to suffer them to march at their ease while his own faithful soldiers were laboriously employed, he left the captain and his independent company as a guard at Fort Necessity, and undertook to complete the military road with his own men.

At Gist's establishment, about thirteen miles from Fort Necessity, Washington received certain intelligence that ample reinforcements had arrived at Fort Duquesne, and a large force would instantly be detached against him. Coming to a halt, he began to throw up intrenchments, calling in two foraging parties, and sending word to Captain Mackay to join him with all speed. The captain and his company arrived in the evening, the foraging parties the next morning. A council of war was held, in which the idea of awaiting the enemy at this place was unanimously abandoned.

A rapid and toilsome retreat ensued. There was a deficiency of horses. Washington gave up his own to aid in transporting the military munition, leaving his baggage to be brought by soldiers, whom he paid liberally. The other officers followed his example. The weather was sultry, the roads were rough, provisions were scanty, and men dispirited by hunger. The Virginian soldiers took turns dragging the swivels, but felt almost insulted by the conduct of the South-Carolinians, who, piquing themselves upon their assumed privileges as king's soldiers," sauntered along at their ease, refusing to act as pioneers, or participate in the extra labors incident to a hurried retreat.

On July 1st, they reached the Great Meadows. Here the Virginians, exhausted by fatigue, hunger and vexation, declared they would carry the baggage and drag the swivels no further. Contrary to his original intentions, therefore, Washington determined to halt here for the present and fortify, sending off expresses to hasten supplies and reinforcements from Wills' Creek, where he had reason to believe that two independent companies from New York were about this time arrived.

The retreat to the Great Meadows had not been in the least too precipitate. Captain de Villiers, a brother-in-law of Jumonville, had actually sallied forth from Fort Duquesne at the head of upward of five hundred French and several hundred Indiaus, eager to avenge the death of his relative. Arriving about dawn of day at Gist's plantation, he surrounded the works which Washington had hastily thrown up there, and fired into them. Finding them deserted, he concluded that those of whom he came in search had made good their retreat to the settlements, and it was too late to pursue them. He was on the point of returning to Fort Duquesne, when a deserter arrived, who gave word that Washington had come to a halt in the Great Meadows, where his troops were in a starving condition; for his own part, he added, hearing that the French were coming, he had deserted to them to escape starvation.

De Villiers ordered the fellow into confinement, to be rewarded if his words proved true, otherwise to be hanged. He then pushed forward for the Great Meadows.

In the meantime, Washington had exerted himself to enlarge and strengthen Fort Necessity, nothing of which had been done by Captain Mackay and his men while encamped there. The fort was about one hundred feet square, protected by trenches and palisades. It stood on the margin of a small stream, nearly in the center of the Great Meadows, which is a grassy plain, perfectly level, surrounded by wooded hills of a moderate height, and at that place about two hundred and fifty yards wide. Washington

asked no assistance from the South Carolina troops, but set to work with his Virginians, animating them by word and example, sharing in the work of felling trees, hewing off the branches, and rolling up the trunks to form a breast work.

Early in the morning of the third, while Washington and his men were working on the fort, a sentinel came in wounded and bleeding, having been fired upon. Scouts brought word shortly afterward that the French were in force, about four miles off. Washington drew up his men on level ground outside of the works, to await their attack. About eleven o'clock there was a firing of musketry from among trees on rising ground.

The firing was kept up under cover. He now fell back with his men into the trenches, ordering them to fire whenever they could get sight of an enemy. In this way there was skirmishing throughout the day, the French and Indians advancing as near as the covert of the woods would permit, which in the nearest place was sixty yards, but never into open sight. In the meanwhile, the rain fell in torrents, the harassed and jaded troops were half drowned in their trenches, and many of their muskets were rendered unfit for use.

About eight at night the French requested a parley. Washington hesitated. It might be a stratagem to gain admittance for a spy into the fort. The request was repeated, with the addition that an officer might be sent to treat with them, under their parole for his safety. Unfortunately, the Chevalier de Peyrouney, engineer of the regiment, and the only one that could speak French correctly, was wounded and disabled. Washington had to send, therefore, his ancient swordsman and interpreter, Jacob Van Braam. The captain returned twice with separate terms, in which the garrison was required to surrender; both were rejected. He returned a third time with written articles of capitulation. They were in French. As no implements for writing were at hand, Van Braum undertook to translate them by word of mouth. A candle was brought and held close to the paper while he read. The rain fell in torrents; it was difficult to keep the light from being extinguished. The captain rendered the capitulation, article by article, in mongrel English, while Washington and his officers stood listening, endeavoring to disentangle the meaning. One article stipulated that on surrendering the fort they should leave all their military stores, munitions and artillery in possession of the French. This was objected to, and was readily modified.

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The main articles, as Washinton and his officers understood them, were that they should be allowed to return to the settlements without molestation from French or Indians. That they should march out of the fort with the honors of war, drums beating and colors flying, and with all their effects and military stores excepting the artillery, which should be destroyed. That they should be allowed to deposit their effects in some secret place, and leave a guard to protect them until they could send horses to bring them away, their horses having been nearly all killed or lost during the action. That they should give their word of honor not to attempt any building or improvements on the lands of his most Christian majesty for the space of a year. That the prisoners taken in the skirmish of Jumonville should be restored, and until their delivery Captain Van Braam and Captain Stobo should remain with the French as hostages.

In this affair, out of the Virginia regiment, consisting of three hundred and five men, officers included, twelve had been killed and forty-three wounded. The number killed and wounded in Captain Mackay's company is not known. The loss of the French and Indians is supposed to have been much greater.

A copy of the capitulation was subsequently laid before the Virginia House of Burgesses, with explanations. Notwithstanding the unfortunate result of the campaigu, the conduct of Washington and his officers was properly appreciated, and they received a vote of thanks for their bravery and gallant defense of their country. Three hundred pistoles (nearly cleven hundred dollars) were also voted to be distributed among the privates who had been in action.

From the vote of thanks two officers were excepted; Major Muse, who was charged with cowardice, and Washington's unfortunate master of fence and blundering interpreter, Jacob Van Braam, who was accused of treachery, in purposely misinterpreting the articles of capitulation.

CHAPTER IV.

IGNORANCE OF GOVERNOR DINWIDDIE IN MILITARY

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AFFAIRS-QUESTIONS OF RANK BETWEEN ROYAL AND PROVINCIAL TROOPS-GENERAL BRADDOCK'S ARRIVAL.

'ARLY in August, Washington rejoined his regiment. Letters from Governor Dinwiddie urged him to recruit it to the former number of three hundred men, and join Colonel Innes at Wills' Creek, where that officer was stationed with Mackay's independent company of South-Carolinians and two independent companies from New York, and had been employed in erecting a work to serve as a frontier post and rallying-point; which work received the name of Fort Cumberland, in honor of the Duke of Cumberland, captain-general of the British army.

In the meantime, the French, elated by their recent triumph, and thinking no danger at hand, relaxed their vigilance at Fort Duquesne. Stobo, who was a kind of prisoner at large there, found means to send a letter secretly by an Indian, dated July 28, 1754, and directed to the commander of the English troops. It was accompanied by a plan of the fort. "There are two hundred men here," writes he, "and two hundred expected; the rest have gone off in detachments to the amount of one thousand, besides Indians. None lodge in the fort but Contrecœur and the guard, consisting of forty men and five officers; the rest lodge in bark cabins around the fort. The Indians have access day and night, and come and go when they please. If one hundred trusty Shawnees, Mingoes and Delawares were picked out, they might surprise the fort, lodging themselves under the palisades by day, and at night secure the guard with their tomahawks, shut the sallygate, and the fort is ours."

The Indian messenger carried the letter to Aughquick and delivered it into the hands of George Croghan. The Indian chiefs who were with him insisted upon his opening it. He did so, but on finding the tenor of it, transmitted it to the governor of Pennsylvania. The secret information communicated by Stobo may have been the cause of a project suddenly conceived by Governor Dinwiddie, of a detachment which, by a forced march across the mountains, might descend upon the French and take Fort Duquesne at a single blow; or, failing that, might build a rival fort in its vicinity. He accordingly wrote to Washington to march forthwith for Wills' Creek, with such companies as were complete, leaving orders with the officers to follow as soon as they should have enlisted men sufficient to make up their companies. "The season of the year," added he, “calls for dispatch. I depend upon your usual diligence and spirit to encourage your people to be active upon this occasion."

The ignorance of Dinwiddie in military affairs, and his want of forecast, led him perpetually into blunders. Washington saw the rashness of an attempt to dispossess the French with a force so inferior that it could be harassed and driven from place to place at their pleasure. Before the troops could be collected, and munitions of war provided, the season would be too far advanced. There would be no forage for the horses; the streams would be swollen and unfordable; the mountains rendered impassable by snow and frost and slippery roads. The men, too, unused to campaigning on the frontier, would not be able to endure a winter in the wilderness, with no better shelter than a tent, especially in their present condition, destitute of almost everything. Such are a few of the cogent reasons urged by Washington in a letter to his friend William Fairfax, then in the

House of Burgesses, which no doubt was shown to Governor Dinwiddie, and probably had an effect in causing the rash project to be abandoned.

The governor, in truth, was sorely perplexed about this time by contradictions and cross-purposes, both in military and civil affairs. A body of three hundred and fifty North-Carolinian troops had been enlisted at high pay, and were to form the chief reinforcement of Colonel Innes at Wills' Creek. By the time they reached Winchester, however, the provincial military chest was exhausted, and future pay seemed uncertain; whereupon they refused to serve any longer, disbanded themselves tumultuously, and set off for their homes without taking leave.

The governor found the House of Burgesses equally unmanageable. His demands for supplies were resisted on what he considered presumptuous pretexts; or granted sparingly, under mortifying restrictions. In a letter to the Board of Trade, he declared that the only way effectually to check the progress of the French would be an act of Parliament requiring the colonies to contribute to the common cause, independently of assemblies; and in another, to the secretary of state, he urged the policy of compelling the colonies to their duty to the king by a general poll-tax of two and sixpence a head.

In the month of October, the House of Burgesses made a grant of twenty thousand pounds for the public service; and ten thousand more were sent out from England, besides a supply of firearms. The governor now applied himself to military matters with renewed spirit; increased the actual force to ten companies, and reduced them all to independent companies, so there would be no officer in a Virginian regiment above the rank of captain. This shrewd measure, upon which Dinwiddie secretly prided himself as calculated to put an end to the difficulties in question, drove Washington out of the service, considering it derogatory to his character to accept a lower commission than that under which his conduct had gained him a vote of thanks from the legislature.

Governor Sharpe, of Maryland, appointed by the king commander-in-chief of all the forces engaged against the French, sought to secure his valuable services, and authorized Colonel Fitzhugh, whom he had placed in temporary command of the army, to write to him to that effect. The reply of Washington (November 15, 1754) is full of dignity and spirit, and shows how deeply he felt his military degradation.

"You make mention," he says, "of my continuing in the service and returning my colonel's commission. This idea has filled me with surprise; for if you think me capable of holding a commission that has neither rank nor emolument annexed to it, you must maintain a very contemptible opinion of my weakness, and believe me more empty than the commission itself. It was to obey the call of honor and the advice of my friends that I declined it, and not to gratify any desire I had to leave the military line. My feelings are strongly bent to arms."

Even had Washington hesitated to take this step, it would have been forced upon him by a further regulation of government, in the course of the ensuing winter, settling the rank of officers of his majesty's forces when joined or serving with the provincial forces in North America, "which directed that all such as were commissioned by the king, or by his general commander-in-chief in North America, should take rank of all officers commissioned by the governors of the respective provinces. And further, that the general and field officers of the provincial troops should have no rank when serving with the general and field officers commissioned by the crown; but that all captains and other inferior officers of the royal troops should take rank over provincial officers of the same grade, having older commissions."

These regulations, originating in that supercilious assumption of superiority which sometimes overruns and degrades true British pride, would have been spurned by Washington as insulting to the character and conduct of his high-minded brethren of the colonies.

Another cause of vexation to Washington was the refusal of Governor Dinwiddie to give up the French prisoners, taken in the affair of De Jumonville, in fulfillment of the articles of capitulation. His plea was that since the capitulation the French had taken several British subjects, and sent them prisoners to Canada; he considered himself justi