In 1744, the disputed Austrian succession threw the whole of Europe into arms, and France and England were of course once more at war. In expectation of this event, when an invasion from Canada might be feared, New York fortified Albany and Oswego, and the friendship of the Six Nations was secured. This precaution was additionally necessary, as they had taken offence, owing to a collision which some of their people had come into with the backwoodsmen of Virginia. At a convention held at Lancaster, to which Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were parties, the Six Nations, with due oratory and ceremonial, relinquished all title to the valley of the Blue Ridge, the central chain of the Alleganies. The western frontiers thus secured, New England proposed a combination of the five northern colonies for their mutual defence, which New York declined, trusting to enjoy her former neutrality.
The war broke out. Fort Canso, in Nova Scotia, was taken by the French; Annapolis was besieged by a united force of Canadians and Indians; privateers issued from Louisburg, and the eastern Indians again attacked the frontiers of Maine. The northern provinces were routed, and Governor Shirley of Massachusetts resolved to attack Louisburg. Louisburg, the capital of Cape Breton, was called, from the strength of its fortifications, the Dunkirk of America. Its position was one of great importance, commanding the navigation of the St. Lawrence and the fisheries of the adjoining seas.
The scheme was a bold one, and Shirley applied to the British ministry for naval assistance, in the meantime laying open his views to the general assembly, after having first sworn all the members to secrecy. Six days were taken to deliberate upon it, and then the scheme was negatived as too hazardous and expensive. And so it might have ended, had not one of the members, during his evening devotions, been heard to pray for the success of the undertaking. The scheme got wind, and the populace approved; the plan was therefore again proposed in the council, and carried by one vote.
Troops were immediately raised by New England. Connecticut sent 500 men; Rhode Island and New Hampshire each 300; but those of Rhode Island did not arrive until Louisburg was taken. Pennsylvania, refusing troops, furnished provisions; and New York, £3,000, a quantity of provisions, and ten eighteen-pounders. The great burden of the war, of course, fell upon Massachusetts, who furnished an army of 3,250 men, with ten armed vessels,—all the fishermen, whose trade the war had interrupted, entering the service as volunteers. The command in chief was given to William Pepperell, a rich merchant in Maine, who was celebrated for his universal good fortune; and Whitfield, then preaching in New Hampshire, suggested as the motto of their flag, “Never despair with Christ for the captain;” and one of the army chaplains, a disciple of Whitfield, carried with him a hatchet, to hew down the images in the French chapels.[1]
An express sent to Commodore Warren, in the West Indies, requesting the co-operation of such ships as he could spare, returned with a negative answer just before the expedition was leaving Boston. Nothing daunted, however, they set sail, and approaching Cape Breton, were prevented from entering its harbours by the great quantity of floating ice. Returning then to Casco, they lay there for several days under a bright sky and in clear weather, and here were agreeably surprised by the arrival of a squadron from Commodore Warren, who had received subsequent orders to render all possible assistance. The next day, nine vessels from Connecticut joined them also, with the troops from that colony. On the 30th of April, the fleet, consisting of 100 vessels, entering Cape Breton, came in sight of Louisburg. This commanding fortress, the walls of which were forty feet thick at the base and from twenty to thirty feet high, was surrounded by a ditch eighty feet wide, and was furnished with 101 cannon, seventy-six swivels, and six mortars; its garrison numbered 1,600 men, and the harbour was defended by an island battery of thirty twenty-two pounders, and by the royal battery on the shore, having thirty large cannon, a moat, and bastions, all so perfect that it was supposed 200 men could defend it against 5,000. The assailants, on the contrary, had only eighteen cannon and three mortars. Reaching the shore, however, they effected a landing almost without opposition, and the following day Colonel Vaughan of New Hampshire led a detachment through the woods, past the city, which they greeted with three cheers. The French, at their approach, having spiked their guns, fled from the royal battery in the night, and the next morning Vaughan and thirteen of his men, having gained possession, defended it against the boats which were sent from Louisburg to retake it. Seth Pomroy, a gunsmith, and a major in one of the Massachusetts regiments, was now employed in the oversight of twenty smiths, who were employed in drilling the cannon; and in the meantime, and for fourteen nights in succession, the hardy besiegers were engaged in dragging their artillery over some miles of boggy morass impassable to wheels, and for the carriage of which a New Hampshire colonel, a carpenter, constructed sledges, which the men, with straps over their shoulders and midleg-deep in mud, drew safely over. Five unsuccessful attempts were made on a battery which defended the town, and the troops, insufficiently provided with tents and other comforts, suffered severely in that cold and foggy climate. But nothing could daunt their ardour. Seth Pomroy, the gunsmith-major, wrote to his wife: “Louisburg is an exceedingly strong place, and seems impregnable. It looks as if our campaign would last long; but I am willing to stay till God’s time comes to deliver the city into our hands.” And his wife replied in the same resolute spirit: “Suffer no anxious thoughts to rest in your mind about me. The whole town is much engaged with concern for the expedition, how Providence will order the affair, for which religious meetings every week are maintained. I leave you in the hand of God.”
At length it was resolved that the fleet should enter the harbour and bombard the city, whilst the land forces attempted to scale the walls. Whilst this was under meditation, a French ship of sixty-four guns, laden with supplies, was taken, after an active engagement, within sight of the town. Fortunately for the besiegers, disaffection prevailed within the walls, and the governor, dispirited by this success of the enemy, sent out a flag of truce and offers of capitulation. On the forty-ninth day of the siege, Louisburg surrendered, together with the island of Cape Breton. When the conquerors entered the city and beheld the strength of the works, their very hearts sunk within them at the greatness of their undertaking; “God has gone out of the way of his common providence,” said they, “to incline the hearts of the French to give up this strong city into our hands.”
The loss of Louisburg exasperated the French nation, and a powerful armament was fitted out to ravage, in return, the whole coast of North America; but Providence again interfered in their behalf; the fleet, under the Duke d’Anville, was scattered and destroyed by storms and wreck, and, to complete its misfortunes, the commander died suddenly, and his successor, in a fit of delirium, committed suicide. The following year, a second fleet, sent out for the same purpose, was taken by Anson and Warren.
The capture of Louisburg was not less a cause of rejoicing in England than in the colonies. Pepperell was made a baronet, and commissioned as a colonel in the British army, and Warren promoted to the rank of rear-admiral. The report of Warren, however, as regarded the New England people, only confirmed the suspicions which were entertained of them at home. “They have,” said he, “the highest notions of the rights and liberties of Englishmen, and, indeed, are almost levellers.”
The Canadian French retaliated immediately for their loss, by attacking the English frontiers and taking several outposts, but no great damage was done. This success revived the favourite scheme of the conquest of Canada, and England, as well as the colonies, began active preparations for carrying it out. In Pennsylvania, where hitherto peace principles had been very carefully maintained, an active military spirit, excited by Benjamin Franklin, who now, after twenty years of industry, had acquired a handsome property, prevailed. “He was the originator,” says Logan, “of two lotteries, that raised above £6,000 to pay for the charge of the batteries on the river, and he found out a way to put the country on raising above 120 companies of militia, of which Philadelphia raised ten, or about 100 men each. The women, too, were so zealous that they furnished ten pair of silk colours, wrought with various mottoes.” Logan, himself a Quaker, though not a strict one, was highly satisfied, as he says, with “Benjamin Franklin for contriving the militia,” and he adds, that, “Franklin, when elected to the command of a regiment, declined the distinction, and carried a musket among the common soldiers.”
The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, however, put an end to all these ambitious schemes of conquest, and the mutual restoration of all places taken during the war being one of its conditions, Cape Breton and Louisburg, to the grief and mortification of the northern colonies, were returned to France. The only thing which consoled Massachusetts for this loss was, that the British indemnified her for the expenses of this last enterprise, to the amount of £183,000, a very welcome boon, when her finances were suffering the most serious embarrassment, owing to her extensive issues of paper money and the depreciation of the currency. It was proposed by Thomas Hutchinson, grandson of the celebrated Anne Hutchinson, and now a wealthy merchant of Boston, and speaker of the House of Representatives, that the money thus granted should be imported in silver, and applied to redeem, at its current value, all the outstanding paper. This was done, and for a quarter of a century, says Hildreth, Massachusetts enjoyed the blessing of a sound currency.
It was just at this time when a great inroad was attempted on the rigidity of the Puritan manners, by the attempt of some young Englishmen at Boston to introduce theatrical entertainments. The play first announced was Otway’s Orphan, but it proceeded no further than announcement, such exhibitions being at once prohibited, “as tending to discourage industry and frugality, and greatly to the increase of impiety and contempt for religion.” Connecticut immediately followed the example; neither would she suffer such Babylonish pursuits. Two years afterwards, a London company of actors came over, and acted the Beau’s Stratagem and Merchant of Venice, at Annapolis and Williamsburg in Virginia. Connecticut and Massachusetts being closed against them, they confined their labours to Annapolis, Williamsburg, Philadelphia, Perth-Amboy, New York and Newport.
The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle left the great causes of difference, the undefined limits of the French and English claims in America, still unsettled. The French, by virtue of the discoveries of La Salle, Marquette, Champlain and others, claimed all the lands occupied by the waters flowing into the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi and the Lakes, and all watered by the Mississippi and its branches. In fact, they claimed the whole of America, except that portion which lies east of the Allegany chain, the rivers of which flow into the Atlantic, and even of this they claimed the basin of the Kennebec and all Maine to the east of that valley. The British on the contrary, asserted a right to the entire country, on account of the discovery of Cabot, extending their claims under the old patents with more than equal extravagance, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. To strengthen this title, they had lately purchased from the chiefs of the confederated Six Nations, acknowledged by the treaties of Utrecht and Aix-la-Chapelle as being under British protection, their claim to the country of the Mississippi, which, it was stated, had at some former period been conquered by them.
The French, as we have already said, had in part carried out their plan of a chain of forts, to connect their more recent settlements on the Mississippi with their earlier ones on the St. Lawrence, when in 1750 a number of gentlemen of Virginia, among whom was Lawrence Washington, the grandfather of the celebrated George, applied to the British parliament for an act for incorporating “the Ohio Company,” and granting them 600,000 acres of land on the Ohio river. This was done; the tract was surveyed, and trade commenced with the Indians. The jealousy of the French was roused; and the Marquis du Quesne, governor of Canada, complained to the authorities of New York and Pennsylvania, threatening to seize their traders if they did not quit this territory. The trade went on as before, and the French carried out their threat, burning the village of an Indian tribe which refused submission, and seizing the English traders and their merchandise; and the following year the number and importance of the French forts was increased.
Robert Dinwiddie, at that time royal governor of Virginia, alarmed at those violent proceedings, purchased permission of the Indians on the Monongahala to build a fort on the junction of that river with the Allegany, and determined to send a trusty messenger to the French commandant at Venango, to require explanation and the release of the captured traders. It was late in the season, and the embassy demanded both courage and wisdom. A young man of two-and-twenty, a major in the militia, and by profession a land-surveyor, and who when only sixteen had been employed as such by Lord Fairfax on his property in the Northern Neck, was selected for this service. This young man was George Washington.
The journey, about 400 miles through the untracked forest, and at the commencement of winter, though full of peril and wild adventure, was performed successfully. Washington was well received by the commandant, St. Pierre, who promised, after two days’ deliberation, to transmit his message to his superiors in Canada; and all unconscious of the present or future importance of their guest, who was making accurate observations as to the strength of the fort, the French officers revealed to him, over their wine, the intentions of France to occupy the whole country.
The reply of St. Pierre, the contents of which were not known till opened at Williamsburg, leaving no doubt of the hostile intentions of the French, Dinwiddie began immediately to prepare for resistance, promising to the officers and soldiers of the Virginian army 200,000 acres of land to be divided amongst them, as an encouragement to enlist. A regiment of 600 men, of which Washington was appointed lieutenant-colonel, marched in the month of April, 1754, into the disputed territory, and, encamping at the Great Meadows, were met by alarming intelligence; the French had driven the Virginians from a fort which, owing to his own recommendation, they were building at “the Fork,” the place where Pittsburg now stands, between the junction of the Monongahala and the Allegany, the importance of which position he had become aware of on his journey to Venango. This fort the French had now finished, and had called Du Quesne, in honour of the governor-general; besides which, a detachment sent against him were encamped at a few miles distance. Washington proceeded, surprised the enemy, and killed the commander, Jumonville—the first blood shed in this war.
On his return to the Great Meadows, Washington was joined by the troops from New York and South Carolina, and here erected a fort, which he called Fort Necessity. Frye, the colonel, being now dead, the chief command devolved upon Washington, who very shortly set out towards Du Quesne, when he was compelled to return and entrench himself within Fort Necessity, owing to the approach of a very superior force under De Villier, the brother of Jumonville. After a day of hard fighting, the fort itself was surrendered, on condition of the garrison being permitted to retire unmolested. A singular circumstance occurred in this capitulation: Washington, who did not understand French, employed a Dutchman as his interpreter, and he, either from ignorance or treachery, rendered the terms of the capitulation incorrectly; thus Washington signed an acknowledgment of having “assassinated” Jumonville, and engaged not again to appear in arms against the French within twelve months.
Hitherto, the intercolonial wars had originated in European quarrels; now, the causes of dispute existed in the colonies themselves, and were derivable from the growing importance of these American possessions to the mother-countries; the approaching war, in consequence, assumed an interest to the colonies which no former war had possessed. It was now, therefore, proposed by the British cabinet that a union should be formed among the colonies for their mutual protection and support, and that the friendship of the Six Nations should be immediately secured. Accordingly a congress was convened at Albany, in June, 1754, at which delegates appeared from New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut; Delaney, governor of New York, being the president. A treaty of peace was signed with the Six Nations, and the convention entered upon the subject of the great union, a plan for which had been drawn up by Benjamin Franklin, the delegate from Pennsylvania, and which was carefully discussed, clause by clause, in the assembly. Both William Penn, in 1697, and Coxe in his “Carolana,” had proposed a similar annual congress of all the colonies for the regulation of trade, and these were the bases of Franklin’s plan of union.
This plan proposed the establishment of a general government in the colonies, the administration of which should be placed in the hands of a governor-general appointed by the crown, and a council of forty-eight members, representatives of the several provinces, “having the power to levy troops, declare war, raise money, make peace, regulate the Indian trade and concert all other measures necessary for the general safety; the governor-general being allowed a negative on the proceedings of the council, and all laws to be ratified by the king.” This plan was signed by all the delegates excepting the one from Connecticut, who objected to a negative being allowed to the governor-general, on the 4th of July, the day on which Fort Necessity was surrendered, and the very day twenty-two years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
This scheme of union was, however, rejected by all the colonial assemblies, on the plea of giving too much power to the crown; and, strange to say, was rejected likewise by the crown, because it gave too much power to the people. The colonial union, therefore, being at an end for the present, it was proposed by the British ministry that money should be furnished for the carrying on of the war by England, to be reimbursed by a tax on the colonies. This scheme, however, the colonies strongly opposed, being averse, argued Massachusetts, to everything that shall have the remotest tendency to raise a revenue in America for any public use or purpose of government. It was, therefore, finally agreed to carry on the war with British troops, aided by such auxiliaries as the colonial assemblies would voluntarily furnish. These pending territorial disputes led to the publication of more complete maps, whereby the position and danger of the British colonies were more clearly understood. The British colonies occupied about a thousand miles of the Atlantic coast, but their extent inland was limited; the population amounted to about 1,500,000. New France, on the contrary, contained a population not exceeding 100,000, scattered over a vast expanse of territory from Cape Breton to the mouth of the Mississippi, though principally collected on the St. Lawrence. The very remoteness of the French settlements, separated from the English by unexplored forests and mountains, placed them in comparative security, while the whole western frontier of the English, from Maine to Georgia, was exposed to attacks of the Indians, disgusted by constant encroachments and ever ready for war.[2]
While negotiations were being carried on with France for the adjustment of the territorial quarrel, the establishment of French posts on the Ohio and the attack on Washington being regarded as the commencement of hostilities, General Braddock was selected as the American major-general, under the Duke of Cumberland, commander-in-chief of the British army. Braddock was a man of despotic temper, intrepid in action, and severe as a disciplinarian; and as the duke had no confidence in any but regular troops, it was ordered that the general and field officers of the colonial forces should be of subordinate rank when serving with the commissioned officers of the king. Washington, on his return from the Great Meadows, found Dinwiddie re-organising the Virginia militia, and that, according to the late orders, he himself was lowered to the rank of captain, on which he indignantly retired from the service.
In February, 1755, Braddock, with two British regiments, arrived in Chesapeake Bay, the colonies having levied forces in preparation, and a tax being already imposed on wine and spirituous liquors, spite of the general opposition to such imposts, and which excited a very general discontent, each family being required on oath to state the quantity consumed by themselves each year, and thus either to perjure or to tax themselves. This unpopular tax gave rise to several newspapers, the first newspaper of Connecticut dating from this time.
Braddock having arrived, a convention of colonial governors met at Alexandria, in Virginia, to concert the plan of action, when four expeditions were determined upon. Lawrence, the lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, was to reduce that province; General Johnson, from his long acquaintance with the Six Nations, was selected to enrol the Mohawk warriors in British pay, and conduct an army of Indians and provincial militia against Crown Point; Governor Shirley was to do the same against Niagara; while Braddock was to attack Fort Du Quesne, and thus recover the Ohio Valley and take possession of the North West.
Soon after Braddock sailed, the French sent out a fleet with a large body of troops under the veteran Baron Dieskau, to reinforce the army in Canada. Although England at this time had avowed only the design of resisting encroachment on her territory, Boscawen was sent out to cruise on the banks of Newfoundland, where he took two of the French ships; of the remainder, some aided by fog, and others by altering their course, arrived safely at Quebec and Louisburg; at the same time, De Vaudreuil, a Canadian by birth, and formerly governor of Louisiana, arrived and superseded Du Quesne as governor of Canada.
Three thousand men sailed from Boston under Lieutenant-colonel Winslow, on the 29th of May, for the expedition against Nova Scotia. This Winslow was the great-grandson of the Plymouth patriarch, and grandson of the commander of the New England forces in King Philip’s war; he was a major-general in the Massachusetts militia, and now, under the British commander-in-chief, was reduced to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. At Chignecto, in the Bay of Fundy, he was joined by Colonel Monckton with 300 British regulars, and advancing against the French forts at Beau Sejour and Gaspereau, took possession of them in five days, after slight resistance; and no sooner did the English fleet appear in the St. John’s, than the French, setting fire to their fort at the mouth of that river, evacuated the country. The English thus, with the loss of about twenty men, found themselves in possession of the whole of Nova Scotia: when great difficulty arose, what was to be done with the people?
Acadia was the oldest French colony in America, having been settled by Bretons sixteen years before the landing of the pilgrim fathers. Thirty years before the commencement of the present war, the treaty of Utrecht had ceded Acadia to Great Britain, yet the settlement remained French in spirit, character, and religion. By the terms granted to them when the British took possession, they were excused from bearing arms against France, and were thence known as “French Neutrals.” From the time of the Peace of Utrecht, they appear, however, almost to have been forgotten, until the present war brought them, to their great misfortune, back to remembrance. Their life had been one of Arcadian peace and simplicity; neither tax-gatherer nor magistrate was seen among them; their parish priests, sent over from Canada, were their supreme head. By unwearied labour they had secured the rich alluvial marshes from the rivers and sea, and their wealth consisted in flocks and herds. Their houses, gathered in hamlets, were full of the comforts and simple luxuries of their position; their clothing was warm, abundant, and home-made, spun and wove from the flax of their fields and the fleeces of their flocks. Thus were the Acadians prosperous and happy as one great family of love. Their population, which had doubled within the last thirty years, amounted at this time to about 2,000.
Unfortunately, these good Acadians had not strictly adhered to their character of neutrals; 300 of their young men had been taken in arms at Beau Sejour, and one of their priests was detected as an active French agent. It was resolved, therefore, to remove them from their present position, in which they had every opportunity of aiding the French. Lawrence, lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, Boscawen, and Mostyn, commanders of the British fleet, consulted with Belcher, chief-justice of the province, and the result was a scheme of kidnapping and conveying them to the various British provinces, although at the capitulation of Beau Sejour it had been strictly provided that the neighbouring inhabitants should not be disturbed. But no matter; they must be got rid of, for there was no secure possession for the English while they, bound by all the ties of language, affection, and religion to France, remained there. A sadder incident of wholesale outrage hardly occurs in history than this. The design was kept strictly secret, lest the people, excited by despair, should rise en masse against their oppressors. Obeying the command, therefore, to assemble at their parish churches, they were surrounded by soldiers, taken prisoners and marched off, without ceremony, to the ships, for transportation. At Grand Pré, for example, says Bancroft, 418 unarmed men came together, when Winslow, the American commander, addressed them, as follows: “Your lands and tenements, cattle of all kinds, and live stock of all sorts, are forfeited to the crown, and you yourselves are to be removed from this province. I am, through, his Majesty’s goodness, directed to allow you to carry off your money, and your household goods, as many as you can without discommoding the vessels you go in.” They were the king’s prisoners; their wives and families shared their lot; their sons, 527 in number; their daughters, 576; the whole, including women and babes, old men and children, amounting to about 2,000 souls. They had left home in the morning; they were never to return. Wonderful it seems, that Heaven left such an outrage on humanity unavenged on the spot!
The 10th of September was the day of transportation. They were marched down to the vessels six abreast; the young men first, driven forward by the bayonet, but not a weapon was allowed to them. It was a scene of heart-breaking misery, and in the confusion of embarkation, wives were separated from their husbands, parents from their children, never to meet again! It was two months before the last of the unhappy people were conveyed away, and in the meantime many fled to the woods; but even this availed nothing, the pitiless conquerors had already destroyed the harvests, to compel their surrender, and burnt their former homes to the ground.
A quota of these poor, unhappy people were sent to every British North American colony, where, broken-hearted and disconsolate, they became burdens on the public charity, and failed not to excite pity by their misery, spite of the hatred to them as Catholics and the exasperation produced by the protracted war. Some few made their way to France; others to Canada, St. Domingo, and Louisiana; and to those who reached the latter country, lands were assigned above New Orleans, still known as the Acadian coast. A number of those sent to Georgia constructed rude boats, and endeavoured to return to their beloved homes in the Bay of Fundy. Generally speaking, they died in exile, the victims of dejection and despair.
It will be remembered by our readers, doubtless, that one of the finest poems which America has produced, “Evangeline,” by Longfellow, is founded on this cruel and unjustifiable outrage on humanity.
The English, in the meantime, as if their arms were not to be blessed, had met with a severe repulse in their attempt to drive the French from the Ohio. Braddock’s troops landed at Alexandria, a small town at the mouth of the Potomac, early in June; and Colonel Washington, being permitted to retain his rank in consequence of the reputation he had already attained, joined the expedition soon after. Braddock made very light of the whole campaign; being stopped at the commencement of his march, for want of horses and wagons, he told Benjamin Franklin, that after having taken Fort Du Quesne, whither he was hastening, he should proceed to Niagara, and having taken that, to Frontenac. “Du Quesne,” said he, “will not detain me above three or four days, and then I see nothing which can obstruct my march to Niagara.” Franklin calmly replied, that the Indians were dexterous in laying and executing ambuscades. “The savages,” replied Braddock, “may he formidable to your raw American militia; upon the king’s regulars it is impossible that they should make any impression.”
Among the wagoners, whom the energy of Franklin obtained, was Daniel Morgan, famous as a village wrestler, who had emigrated as a day-labourer from New Jersey to Virginia, and who, having saved his wages, was now the owner of a team, all unconscious of his future greatness.[3] By the advice of Washington, owing to the difficulty of obtaining horses and wagons, the heavy baggage was left under the care of Colonel Dunbar, with an escort of 600 men; and Braddock, at the head of 1,300 picked men, proceeded forward more rapidly. Fort Du Quesne, in the meantime, was receiving reinforcements.
Braddock was by no means deficient in courage or military skill, but he was wholly ignorant of the mode of conducting warfare amid American woods and morasses; and to make this deficiency the greater, he undervalued the American troops, nor would profit by the opinions and experience of American officers. Washington urged the expediency of employing the Indians, who, under the well-known chief Half-king, had already offered their services as scouts and advance parties; but Braddock rejected both the advice and this offered aid, and that so rudely that Half-king himself and his Indians were seriously offended.
It was now the 9th of July, and the governor of Du Quesne almost gave up his fort as lost; for Braddock and his army were that morning only twelve miles distant. Washington, about noon riding a little a-head, looked back from the height above the right bank of the Monongahala, and beheld the advanced guard of regulars, headed by Lieutenant-colonel Gage, advancing, with all the glitter of their brilliant uniform, into an open wood. At that moment the Indian war-whoop sounded, and they were fired upon from all quarters by an invisible foe. The assailants, about 200 French and 600 Indians, hidden in some ravines on each side of the road and amid the long grass, poured in a deadly fire: the British troops, seized with sudden panic, were thrown into hopeless confusion, and would have fled, but that Braddock rallied them and exerted himself to the utmost to restore order. Succeeding in part, and preserving something like the order of battle, the horrors of the moment were increased; for his men, “penned like sheep in a fold,” were the better mark for the invisible enemy, who themselves, expecting merely to harass, never hoping to defeat, were astonished at their own success. The Indians, singling out the officers, shot down every one; of eighty-six officers, twenty-six were killed and thirty-seven wounded; of the men one-half were killed or wounded. Washington alone seemed to be preserved as by an especial Providence. In vain the Indian singled him out also as a mark for his rifle; no bullet took his life, though two horses were shot under him, and four bullets, after the battle, were found lodged in his coat. Well might the savage exclaim, “Some powerful Manitou guards his life!” This singular preservation of the young Washington, in the midst of death, attracted the attention of all. “I cannot but hope,” said a learned divine, a month afterwards, “that Providence has preserved that heroic youth, Colonel Washington, in so especial a manner for some important service to his country.” And in England Lord Halifax inquired, “Who is this Mr. Washington? I know nothing of him; but they say that he behaved in Braddock’s action as bravely as if he loved the whistling of bullets.”
Braddock remained undismayed amid the shower of bullets; five horses were shot under him, and at length a ball entering his right side, he fell mortally wounded. With difficulty he was borne off the field; for many hours he remained silent; towards evening he said, “Who would have thought it?” On the 12th, Braddock being conveyed to Dunbar’s camp, the remaining artillery was destroyed, the public stores and heavy baggage burnt, to the value of £100,000, Dunbar assigning as the reason, the dying general’s commands. The next day they retreated, and the same night Braddock died; his last words being, “We shall know better how to deal with them another time.” His grave may still be seen near the public road, about a mile west of Fort Necessity.[4]
Philadelphia was preparing for the triumph of victory, when the news of this shameful defeat reached the city, in the arrival of Dunbar, on whom the command had now devolved. The whole frontier of Virginia was thus left open to the depredations of the French and Indians. The French at Fort Du Quesne endeavoured to withdraw the Cherokees from their fidelity to the English, and news of this reaching the ears of Glen, governor of South Carolina, a council of Cherokee chiefs was called, the covenant of peace was renewed, and the cession of a large tract of land in South Carolina was obtained.
The expedition against Niagara was entrusted to Governor Shirley, who now, by the death of Braddock, was commander-in-chief of the British forces. It was intended that the troops destined for this service should assemble at Oswego, whence they were to proceed by water to the mouth of the Niagara. The march, however, was one of extreme difficulty, the troops being disabled by sickness and disheartened by the news of Braddock’s defeat; and when after six weeks it was accomplished, various adverse circumstances, violent winds and rains, and the desertion of their Indian allies, rendered it unadvisable for them to proceed. Two strong forts were, however, erected, and vessels built in preparation for their embarkation.
The troops destined for the expedition against Crown Point, consisting principally of the militia of Connecticut and Massachusetts, were entrusted to General (afterwards Sir William) Johnson. In June and July, about 6,000 New England men, having Phineas Lyman as their major-general, reached the portage between Hudson River and Lake George, where they constructed a fort called Fort Lyman, afterwards Fort Edward. Here they were joined by General Johnson, with about 3,400 irregulars and Indians, towards the end of August, when he assumed command and advanced towards Lake George. Dieskau, in the meantime, having ascended Lake Champlain with 2,000 men from Montreal, was now pushing on to Fort Lyman, when, altering his route, probably at the request of his Indian allies, who dreaded the English artillery, he suddenly attacked the camp of Johnson. Already informed of his intended attack on Fort Edward, Johnson had sent out 1,000 Massachusetts men, under Ephraim Williams, and a body of Mohawk warriors, under a famous chief called Hendricks, for the purpose of intercepting their return. Unfortunately, however, this detachment fell in with the whole force of Dieskau’s army in a narrow defile, and were driven back with great slaughter, Williams and Hendricks being soon slain. It was this Williams who, when passing through Albany, made his will, leaving his property, in case of his death, to found a Free School for Western Massachusetts, which is now the Williams College; a better monument, as Hildreth justly observes, than any victory would have been. The loss of the enemy was also considerable.
The firing being heard in the camp of Johnson, the repulse of Williams was suspected. A breast-work of felled trees was therefore hastily constructed, and a few cannon mounted, which had just been brought up from Fort Edward; and scarcely had the fugitives reached the camp, when the enemy appeared, who met with so warm a reception from the newly-planted cannon, that the Canadian troops and the Indians soon fled, greatly to the chagrin of Dieskau. Johnson, being early wounded, retired from the fight, and the New Englanders, under their own officers, fought bravely for five hours. It was a terrible day for the French; nearly all their regulars perished, and Dieskau was mortally wounded, though he still refused to retire. Two Canadians, who wished to carry him from the field, were shot dead at his side, and he himself soon after, being found seated on the stump of a tree, was wantonly shot by a renegade Frenchman. A small remnant fled, only to be pursued by a detachment from Fort Edward. Instead of pursuing his advantage, Johnson spent the autumn in erecting a fort on the site of his encampment, called Fort William Henry; and the season being late, dispersed his army to their respective provinces. In the meantime the French were strengthening their position at Crown Point, and fortifying Ticonderoga. These actions are known as the battle of Lake George.
Benjamin Franklin having about this time published an account of the rapid increase of population in the United States, the attention of England was turned to the immensely growing power of her colonies. Let us hear the reasoning of the two parties on this subject. “I have found,” said the royal governor, Shirley, who had been appealed to, “that the calculations are right. The number of the inhabitants is doubled every twenty years.” He admitted that the demand for British manufactures and the employment of shipping increased in an equal ratio; also that the sagacity which had been displayed in the plan of union proposed at the late congress at Albany, might justly excite the fear of England, lest the colonists should throw off their dependence on the mother-country and set up a government of their own. But, added he, let it be considered how various are the present constitutions of their respective governments; how much their interests clash, and how opposed their tempers are, and any coalition among them will be found to be impossible. “At all events,” said he, “they could not maintain such an independency without a strong naval force, which it must ever be in the power of Great Britain to prevent. Besides, the 7,000 troops which his Majesty has in America, and the Indians at command, provided the provincial governors do their duty and are maintained independent of the assemblies, may easily prevent any such step being taken.”
The royal governor of Virginia, Dinwiddie, urged upon parliament his plan of a general land and poll tax, begging, however, that the plan might come entirely as from them; he urged also the subversion of charter-governments, arguing that all would remain in a distracted condition until his majesty took the proprietary government into his own hands. Another advised that Duke William of Cumberland should be sent out as sovereign of the united provinces of British America, on the plea that in a few years the colonies of America would be independent of Britain.
These fears were prophetic of the future, and indeed were but an echo of the popular sentiment. Franklin was thinking, and acting, and scattering abroad words, which were winged seeds of liberty; Washington was already doing great deeds; and John Adams, then the young teacher of a New England free school, was giving words to ideas which thousands besides himself were prepared to turn into deeds. “All creation,” said he, “is liable to change; mighty states are not exempted. Soon after the Reformation, a few people came out here for conscience sake. This apparently trivial incident may transfer the great seat of empire into America. If we can remove these turbulent Gallics, our people, according to the exactest calculation, will in another century become more numerous than England itself. All Europe will not be able to subdue us. The only way to keep us from setting up for ourselves, is to disunite us.” They had learnt already that union was strength.