CHAPTER XI.

WAR. From the year 1750 to 1757. Confer ences at Paris. Measures of the French. Embassy and defeat of Washington. Views of the English and French colonies. Congress, and plan of union at Albany. Council of generals and governors at Alexandria. Expedi tion and defeat of Braddock. Success of Monckton and Winslow in Nova Scotia. Proposed expedition to Niagara. Proceedings of baron Dieskau at lake Champlain. Victory of Johnson at lake George. Termination of the campaigns of 1755. Military arrangements of the British ministry in 1756. Capture of Oswego by Montcalm. Inactivity of the earl of London.

1752. BY the treaty of Aix la Chappelle, the controversy between the British and French crowns relative to their claims in A merica was referred to commissioners to be ap. pointed by the two sovereigns for that purpose. These commissioners met at Paris in the year 1752, of which Mr. Shirley, governor of Massachusetts, was one. They laboured much to establish the claims of their respective sovereigns by virtue of ancient grants, maps, treaties, priority of discovery, ceremonies of taking possession, concessions, and such other grounds of claim, as were then customary among sovereigns; and were supposed to be matters of real weight and importance. The commissioners were not able to come to any agreement; and

no other advantage resulted from their labors and controversies, than a well written account of their conferences, containing much historical and geographical information.

1753. In the mean time the settlers in the English and French colonies, were making nearer approaches to each other; and their rulers were anxious on both sides to seize the most favorable situations and passes for new forts and trading houses. These interferences of the colonists took place the most in the provinces of Nova Scotia, New-York, and Virginia. In these encroachments the French generally discovered the most foresight, vigilance, and activity. They surprised Logstown, which the Virginians had built upon the Ohio; made themselves masters of the block-house, and truck-house, with the stores of twenty thousand pounds value, and destroyed the British traders: An officer, with a large force came down the Ohio, and reduced a fort, which the Virginians had built on the forks of the Monongehala. The marquis Du Quesne was at that time invested with the chief command in New-France. Of an active and enterprising genius, in the year 1753, he began a fort and settlement on the banks of the Ohio, at the place from whence he had driven the English, now called Pittsburgh; designed to secure a station on that beautiful and extensive river, which should engross the trade, and command the Indians in the adjacent parts of the country. The governor of Virginia, Mr. Dinwiddie, was alarmed at so near approach of the French to the settlements in that province. On October the thirty first

he wrote to the commander of the French troops, complaining of sundry acts of hostility; and desiring to be informed, by what authority, the French troops had taken possession of a territory belonging to his master, the king of Great Britain.

Ir was on this occasion that the name of GEORGE WASHINGTON was first announced to the world. Governor Dinwiddie gave him a major's commission, and appointed him to be the bearer of his letter to the commander of the French troops. In the winter, and through a scene of much suffering and danger, major Washington executed the business of his commission with that intrepid, determined, persevering spirit, which, since that period, has so much engaged the attention and applause of his country, and of the world. M. Legardeur de St. Pierre, commander of the French troops on the Ohio, returned an answer, December the fifth, full of spirit and resolution, declaring the country to belong to the French king; and announcing his determination to obey his orders, preserve his post, and retain a situation so fa vorable to defence and strength.

1754. CONVINCED by the spirited and resolute answer of the French commander that further encroachments were to be expected, the governor and general assembly of Virginia determined to make a serious opposition to the French establishments on the Ohio. In Febru ary 1754, the assembly voted to raise three hundred men, for the protection of their frontiers. Washington at that time was a young gentleman of twenty two years of age. His VOL. I. $ 2

conduct, in the embassy to the French commander, had proved highly satisfactory to the governor and council; and he was now appointed lieutenant colonel, and the command of the troops was assigned to him. In addition to the men raised in Virginia, two independent companies of foot were ordered by the king to march from New-York to the frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania.

On April the third, Washington set out from Alexandria at the head of a little army of one hundred and sixty seven men. On May the twenty eighth, they had a skirmish with an advanced party of the French; of which nine were killed, with M. de Jumonville their commander, and twenty one were taken prisoners. A reverse of fortune soon took place: While Washington was waiting with about three hundred men for a reinforcement, he received intelligence that the French were advancing with a body of nine hundred men, and two hundred Indians. On July the third he was attacked by a force greatly superior to his own, under the command of De Villier; and after a resistance of three hours, found it necessary to submit to the superior force of the enemy. The terms that were offered to him were of an humiliating nature, but he was no longer in a situation to refuse the demands of the enemy, and was obliged to capitulate. In this engagement the English had thirty killed, and fifty wounded. De Villier reported his loss to be but two Frenchmen, and one Indian killed, and seventeen wounded; and boasted that by making ase of the French language, the terms of the

capitulation were so expressed, as to make the English acknowledge that they had committed murder in the case and camp of his brother Jumonville; and that the favors manifested to them in the capitulation, were designed to show how much they desired to treat them as friends. Hostilities being thus commenced, and some of the Indians slain, it was known that in conformity to what had always been the maxims and customs of the savages, the other tribes would immediately engage, and an Indian war would commence from one end of the British colonies to the other. And before the summer was ended, the Indians all round the frontiers from Virginia to the province of Maine, appeared to be in arms, and began their attacks upon the English.

SUCH was the commencement of war in 1754; a war, in which all Europe was soon to be involved; and by which, the empire and destinies of North America were to be decided. The French, with a policy superior to the English, had for several years been pursuing an uniform and systematic plan of colonization. Their settlements in Canada and Louisiana were at a great distance from each other. By means of the lakes, and the rivers St. Lawrence and Mississippi, they had found situations by which these settlements might be connected by a chain of posts and forts. The plan they were executing, was to take possession of all the comman ding situations from one colony to the other; to erect forts and trading houses, not far from each other; and thus to command the trade, exclude the English from the Indian country,