CHAPTER IX.

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR

THE Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had been made only because the contestants were tired of fighting. In America, at least, each at once began taking breath and preparing to renew the struggle. Not a year passed that did not witness border quarrels more or less bloody. The French authorities filled the Ohio and Mississippi valleys with military posts; English settlers pressed persistently into the same to find homes. In this movement Virginia led, having in 1748 formed, especially to aid western settlement, the Ohio Company, which received from the king a grant of five hundred thousand acres beyond the Alleghanies. A road was laid out between the upper Potomac and the present Pittsburgh, settlements were begun along it, and efforts made to conciliate the savages.

One of the frontier villages was at what is now Franklin, Penn., and the location involved Virginia with the colony of Pennsylvania. As commissioner to settle the dispute George Washington was sent out.

The future Father of his Country was of humble origin. Born in Westmoreland County, Va., "about ten in ye morning of ye 11th day of Feb

ruary, 1731-32," as recorded in his mother's Bible, he had been an orphan from his earliest youth. His education was of the slenderest. At sixteen he became a land surveyor, leading a life of the roughest sort, beasts, savages, and hardy frontiersmen his constant companions, sleeping under the sky and cooking his own coarse food. No better man could have been chosen to thread now the Alleghany trail.

Washington reported the French strongly posted in western Pennsylvania on lands claimed by the Ohio Company. Virginia fitted out an expedition to dislodge them. Of this Washington commanded the advance. Meeting at Great Meadows the French under Contrecœur, commander of Fort Du Quesne (Pittsburgh), he was at first victorious, but the French were re-enforced before he was, and Washington, after a gallant struggle, had to capitulate. This was on July 3, 1754. The French and Indian War had begun.

The English Government bade the colonies defend their frontier, and in this interest twenty-five delegates from the seven northern colonies met at Albany on June 19, 1754. Benjamin Franklin represented Pennsylvania, and it was at this conference that he presented his well-considered plan, to be described in our chapter on Independence, for a general government over English America. The Albany Convention amounted to little, but did somewhat to renew alliance with the Six Nations.*

In this decisive war England had in view four great objects of conquest in America: 1. Fort * Increased from five to six by the accession of the Tuscaroras.

Du Quesne; 2. The Ontario basin with Oswego and Fort Niagara; 3. The Champlain Valley; 4. Louisburg. The British ministry seemed in earnest. It sent Sir Edward Braddock to this side with six thousand splendidly equipped veterans, and offered large sums for fitting out regiments of provincials. Braddock arrived in February, 1755, but moved very languidly. This was not altogether his fault, for he had difficulties with the governors and they with their legislatures.

At last off for Fort Du Quesne, he took a needlessly long route, through Virginia instead of Pennsylvania. He scorned advice, marching and fighting stiffly according to the rules of the Old World military art, heeding none of Franklin's and Washington's sage hints touching savage modes of warfare. The consequence was this brave Briton's defeat and death. As he drew near to Fort Du Quesne, he fell into a carefully prepared ambuscade. Four horses were shot under him. Mounting a fifth he spurred to the front to inspire his men, forbidding them seek the slightest cover, as Washington urged and as the provincials successfully did. The regulars, obeying, were half of them killed in their tracks, the remainder retreating, in panic at first, to Philadelphia. Braddock died, and was buried at Great Meadows, where his grave is still to be seen.

Washington was the only mounted officer in this action who was not killed or fatally wounded, a fact at the time regarded specially providential. On his return, aged twenty-three, the Rev. Samuel Davies, afterward President of the College of New

"that heroic

Jersey, referred to him in a sermon as youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has preserved in so signal a manner for some important service to his country."

The early part of this war witnessed the tragic occurrence immortalized by Longfellow's "Evangeline," the expulsion of the French from Acadia. The poem is too favorable to these people. They had never become reconciled to English rule, and were believed on strong evidence to be active in promoting French schemes against the English. It was resolved to scatter them among the Atlantic settlements. The act was savage, and became doubly so through the unmeant cruelties attending its execution. The poor wretches were huddled on the shore weeks too soon for their transports. Families were broken up, children forcibly separated from parents. The largest company was carried to Massachusetts, many to Pennsylvania, some to the extreme South. Not a few, crushed in spirit, became paupers. A number found their way to France, a number to Louisiana, a handful back to Nova Scotia.

He

Braddock was succeeded by the fussy and incompetent Earl of Loudon, 1756-57, whom Franklin likened to Saint George on the sign-posts, 'always galloping but never advancing." gathered twelve thousand men for the recapture of Louisburg, but exaggerated reports of the French strength frightened him from the attempt. Similar inaction lost him Fort William Henry on Lake George. The end of the year 1757 saw the English cause on this side at low ebb, Montcalm, the

tried and brilliant French commander, having outwitted or frightened the English officers at every point.

From this moment all changes. William Pitt subsequently Lord Chatham, now became the soul of the British ministry. George III. had dismissed him therefrom in 1757, but Newcastle found it impossible to get on without him. The great commoner had to be recalled, this time to take entire direction of the war.

Pitt had set his mind on the conquest of Canada. He superseded Loudon early in 1758 by General Amherst, who was seconded by Wolfe and by Admiral Boscawen, both with large re-enforcements. They were to reduce Louisburg. It was an innovation to assign important commands like these to men with so little fame and influence, but Pitt did not care. He believed his appointees to be brave, energetic, skilful, and the event proved his wisdom. Louisburg fell, and with it the whole of Cape Breton Island and also Prince Edward.

Unfortunately General Abercrombie had not been recalled with Loudon. The same year, 1758, he signally failed to capture Ticonderoga, leaving the way to Montreal worse blocked than before. Fort Du Quesne, however, General Forbes took this year at little cost, rechristening it Pittsburgh in honor of the heroic minister who had ordered the enterprise.

In the year 1759 occurred a grand triple movement upon Canada. Amherst, now general-inchief, was to clear the Champlain Valley, and Prideaux with large colonial forces to reduce Fort