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Show lVESS STItY-f T5SIC FIRST PIESiSV11 J, Zf BY THE PfE.S!HENT ' a yVrr:-S?---'i ii in 'mi in Installment 3 An English lieutenant at Oswego had described the multitudious fleet of canoes upon Ontario carrying this levy to Its place of landing in the lake beyond, and a vagrant Frenchman French-man had told him plainly what it was. It was an army of six hundred men, he boasted, going to the Ohio, "to cause all the English to quit those parts." It was plain to every English Eng-lish governor in the colonies who had his eyes open that the French would not stop with planting a fort upon an obscure branch of the Alleghany, but that they would indeed press forward tt take possession of the Ohio, drive every English trader forth, draw all the native tribes to their interest by force or favor, and close alike the western lands and the western trade In very earnest against all the king's subjects. ' Governors See the Danger. Governor Dinwlddie was among the first to see the danger and the need for action, as, In truth, was very natural. nat-ural. In office and out, his study had been the colonial trade, and he had been merchant and official now a long time. He was one of the twenty stockholders of the Ohio company, and had come to his governorship in Virginia with his eye upon the western west-ern country. He had but to look about him to perceive that Virginia would very likely be obliged to meet the crisis unaided, if, indeed, he could Induce even her to meet It. Governor Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, Pennsylva-nia, also saw how critically affairs stood, it is true, and what ought to be done. Hk. agents had met and acted vlth the agents of the Ohio company already In seeking Indian ' alliances and fixing upon points of vantage beyond be-yond the Alleghanies. ' But the Pennsylvania Penn-sylvania assembly could by no argument argu-ment or device be induced to vote money or measures in- the business. The placid Quaker traders were as stubborn as the stolid German farmers. farm-ers. They opposed it because they could not for the life of them see the necessity of parting with their money to send troops upon so remote an errand. Dinwiddle Does Not Hesitate. Dinwiddle did not wait or parley. Pie acted first and consulted his legislature legis-lature afterwards. It was in his Scots blood to take the business very strenuously, and in his trader's blood to take it very anxiously... He had kept himself advised from the . first of the movements of the French. Their vanguard had scarcely reached Presque Isle ere he dispatched letters let-ters to England apprising the government govern-ment of the danger. Answer had come very promptly, too, authorizing him to build forts upon the Ohio, If he could get the money from the Burgesses; Bur-gesses; and meantime, should the French trespass further, "to require of them peaceably to depart." "If they would not desist for a warning," i Becomes a Messenger. said his majesty, "we do hereby strictly strict-ly charge and command you to drive them off by force of arms." Even to send a warning to the French was no easy matte'r when the king's letter came and the chill autumn rains were at hand. The mountain streams, alread y swollen, presently to be full of ice, would be very dangerous for men and horses, and the forests were likely enough to teem with hostile savages, now the French were there. A proper messenger was found and dispatched, nevertheless young Major George Washington, of the Northern district. The errand lay in his quarter; quar-ter; his three years of surveying at the heart of the wilderness had made him an experienced woodsman and hardy traveler, had tested his pluck and made proof of his character; he was well known upon th6 frontier, and his friends were very influential, and very cordial in recommending him for this or any other manly service that called for steadiness, hardihood and resource. Dinwlddie Knows His Man. Dinwlddie had been a correspondent of Lawrence Washington's ever since the presidency of the Ohio company had fallen to the young Virginian upon the death of his neighbor, Thomas Lee, writing to him upon terms of intimacy. He knew the stock of which George, the younger brother, came, and the interests in which he might be expected to embark with ardor; he could feel that he took small risk In selecting such an agent. Knowing him, too, thus through his family and like a friend, he did not hesitate in writing to Governor Hamilton of Pennsylvania, Penn-sylvania, to speak of this youth of twenty-one as "a person of distinction." distinc-tion." Washington performed his errand as Dinwiddle must have expected he would. He received his commission and the governor's letter to the French commandant on the last day of October, Octo-ber, and set out the same day for the mountains. Jacob Vanbraam, the Dutch soldier of fortune who had been his fencing master at Mount Vernon, accompanied him as interpreter, and Christopher Gist, the hardy, self-reliant frontier trader, whom the Ohio company had employed to make interest inter-est for them among the Indians of the far region upon the western livers which he knew so well, was engaged to act as his guide and counselor; and with a few servants and ' pack horses he struck straight into the forests for-ests in the middle of bleak November Reaches the French Fort. It was the eleventh of December before the jaded party rode, in the cold dusk, Into the drenched and miry clearing where the dreary little fort stood that held the French commander. command-er. Through two hundred and fifty miles and more of forest they had dragged themselves over swollen rivers, riv-ers, amidst an almost ceaseless fall of rain or snow, with not always an Indian In-dian trail, or the beaten track of the bison, to open the forest growth for their flagging horses, and on the watch always against savage treachery. It had become plain enough before they reached their destination what answer they should get from the French. Sixty miles nearer home than these lonely headquarters of the French commander at Fort Le Boeuf they had come upon an outpost where the French colors were to be seen flying fly-ing from a house from which an English Eng-lish trader had been driven out, and the French officers there had uttered brutally frank avowal of their purpose pur-pose in that wilderness as they sat at wine with the alert and temperate young Virginian. "It was their absolute abso-lute design," they said, "to take possession pos-session of the Ohio, and, by G , they would do It. . . . They were sensible the English could raise two men for their one, yet they knew their, motions were too slow and dilatory to prevent any undertaking of theirs." The Commandant Courteous. The commandant at Fort Le Boeuf received the wayworn ambassador very courteously, and even graciously a thoughtful, elderly man, Washington Washing-ton noted him, "with much the air of a soldier" but would make no profession pro-fession even that he would consider the English summons to withdraw; and the little party of Englishmen presently turned back amid the winter's win-ter's storms to carry through the frozen wilderness a letter which boasted boast-ed the French lawful masters of all the continent beyond the Alleghanies. When Washington reached Williamsburg, Wil-liamsburg, in the middle of January, 1754, untouched by even the fearful fatigues and anxieties of that daring Journey, he had accomplished nothing but the establishment ot his own character char-acter in the eyes of the men who were to meet the crisis now at hand. He had been at Infinite pains, at every stage of the dreary adventure, to win and hold the confidence of the Indians Indi-ans who were accounted friends of the English, and had displayed an older man's patience, address and fortitude in meeting all their subtle shifts; and he had borne hardships that tried even the doughty Gist. When the horses gave out, he had left them to come by easier stages, while he made his way afoot, with only a single companion, across the weary leagues that lay upon his homeward home-ward way. Gist, his comrade in the hazard, had been solicitously "unwilling "unwil-ling he should undertake such a travel, who had never been used to walking before this time," but the imperative young commander would not be stayed, and the Journey was made, spite of sore feet and frosts and exhausting ex-hausting weariness. He at least knew what the French were about, with what strongholds and forces, and could afford to wait orders what to do next. The Governor Had Been Busy. Dinwlddie had not been idle while Washington went his perilous errand. He had gotten the burgesses together by the first of November, before Washington had left the back settlements settle-ments to cross the wilderness, and would have gotten a liberal grant of money from them had they not fallen in their debates upon the question of j the new fee charged, since his coraing. j for every grant out of the public lands of the colony, and Insisted that It Bhould be done away with. "Subjects," "Sub-jects," they said, very stubbornly, "cannot be deprived of tha leaet part of their property without their con sent;" and such a fee, they thought, was too like a tax to be endured. They would withhold the grant, they declared, unless the fee was abolished, notwithstanding they saw plainly enough in how critical a case things stood in the west; and the testy governor gov-ernor very -indignantly sent them home again. He ordered a draft of 200 men from the militia, nevertheless, neverthe-less, with the purpose of assigning the command to Washington and seeing see-ing what might be done upon the Ohio without vote of the assembly. Defies the Burgesses. A hard-header Scotchman past sixty could not b-e expected to wait upon a body of wrangling and factious provincials pro-vincials for leave to perform his duty in a crisis, and, inasmuch as the object ob-ject was to save their own lands, and perhaps their own persons, from the French, could hardly be blamed for proposing In his anger that they be taxed for the purpose by act of parliament. par-liament. "A governor," he exclaimed, "is really to be pitied in the discharge dis-charge of of his duty to his king and country in having to do with such obstinate, self-conceited people!" Some money he advanced out of bis own pocket. When Washington came back from his fruitless mission, Dinwiddle or- A Ragged Regiment. dered his journal printed and copies sent to all the colonial governors. "As it was thought advisable by his honor the governor to have the following account ac-count of my proceedings to and from the French on Ohio committed to print," said th3 modest young major, ."I think I can do no less than apologize, apolo-gize, in some measure, for the numberless number-less Imperfections in it." But It was a very manly recital of noteworthy things, and touched the imagination and fears of every thoughtful man who read it quite as near the quick as the urgent and repeated letters of the troubled Dinwlddie. Virginia, It turned out, was after all more forward than all her neigh bors when it came to action. The. Pennsylvania assembly very coolly declared they , doubted his majesty's ma-jesty's claim to the lands on the Ohio, and the assembly in New York followed suit. "It appears," they said, in high judicial tone, "that the French have built a fort at the place called French Creek, at a considerable distance dis-tance from the river Ohio, which may, but does not by any evidence or Information In-formation appear to us to be, an invasion in-vasion of any of his majesty's colonies." colo-nies." The governors of the other colonies whose safety was most directly menaced men-aced by the movements of the French In the west were thus even less able to act than Dlnwiflrlir. Pnr tha Vir ginia burgesses, though they would not yield the point of the fee upon land grants, did not mean to leave Major Washington in the lurch, and before an expedition could be got afoot had come together again to vote a su-i of money. A Regiment Raised. It would be possible with the sum they appropriated to put 300 or 400 men Into the field; and as spring drew on, raw volunteers began to gather gath-er in some numbers at Alexandria a ragged regiment, made up for the most part of idle and shiftless men, who did not alwayB have shoes, or even shirts, of their own to wear; anxious to get their eight-pence a day, but not anxious to work or submit to discipline. dis-cipline. 'Twas astonishing how steady and how spirited they showed themselves when once they had shaken shak-en their lethargy off and were on the march or face to face with the enemy. A body of woodsmen had bpen hurried forward in February, ere spring had opened, to make a clearing and set to work upon a fort at the forks of the Ohio; but It was the 2d of April before men enough could be collected at Alexandria to begin the main movement towards the frontier, and by that time it was too late to checkmate the French. The little force sent forward to begin fortlfica'-tlons fortlfica'-tlons had set about their task very sluggishly and without skill and their commander had turned' bark again with some of his men to rejoin re-join the forces behind him before the petty works he should h;.ve stayed to finish were well begun. Compelled to Surrender . When, therefore, on the 17th of April, the river suddenly filled with, canoes bearing an army of more than 500 Frenchmen, who put cannon ashore, and summoned the 40 men who held the place to surrender, or be blown into the water, there was no choice but to comply. The young ensign en-sign who commanded the little garrison gar-rison urged a truce till he could communicate com-municate with his superiors, but tha French commander would brook no delay. The boy might either take his men off free and unhurt, or else fight and face sheer destruction; and the nearest succor was a little force of 150 men under Colonel Washington, who had not yet topped the Alleghanies in their painful work of cutting a way through the forests for their field pieces and wagons. Second In Command. The governor's plans had been altered al-tered by the assembly's vote of money and the additional levy of men which it made possible. Col. John Fry, whom Dinwiddle deemed "a man of good sense, and one of our best mathematicians," math-ematicians," had been given the command com-mand in chief, and Washington had been named his second in command, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. "Dear George," wrote Mr. Corbin of the Governor's council, "I enclose you your commission. God prosper you with it!" and the brunt of the work In fact fell upon the younger man. But 300 volunteers could be gotten got-ten together; and, all too late, half of the raw levy were sent forward under Washington to find or make a way for wagons and ordnance to the Ohio. The last days of May were almost at hand before they had crossed cross-ed the main ridge of the Allegheules, so inexperienced were they in the rough labor of cutting a road through the close-set growth and over the sharp slopes of the mountains, and so 111 equipped; and by that time it was already too late by a full month and more to forestall the French, who had only to follow the open highway of the Alleghany to bring what force they would to the key of the west at the forks of the Ohio. Build Fort Duquesne. As the spring advanced, the French force upon the river grew from 500 to 1,400 men, and work was pushed rapidly forward upon fortifications such as the little band of Englishmen they had ousted had not thought of attempting a veritable fort, albeit of a rude frontier pattern, which its builders caljed Duquesne, in honor of their governor. ( Washington could hit upon no water wa-ter course that would afford him quick transport; 'twould have been folly, bssides, to take his handful ot ragged provincials Into the presence Of an intrenched army. He was fain to go into camp at Grand Meadows,' just across the ridge of the mountains, and there await his colonel with supplies sup-plies and an additional handful of men. Becomes Comander-ln-Chlef. It was "a charming field for an encounter," en-counter," the young commander thought, but it was to be hoped the enemy would not find their way to it in too great numbers. An "Independent "In-dependent Company" of provincials in the king's pay joined him out of South Carolina, whence they had been sent forward by express orders from England Eng-land and the rest of the Virginia volunteers vol-unteers at last came up to Join their comrades at the Meadows without good Colonel Fry, the doughty mathematician, mathe-matician, who had sickened and died on the way so that there were presently pres-ently more than 300 men at the camp, and Washington was now their commander. com-mander. ; The officers of the Independent company com-pany from South Carolina, holding their commissions from the king, would not, Indeed, take their orders from Washington, with his colonial commission merely; and, what was worse, their men would not work; but thefe was no doubt they would fight with proper dignity and spirit for his majesty, their royal master. Tho first blood had already been drawn, on the 28th of May, before reinforcements reinforce-ments had arrived, when Washington had but just come to camp. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |