Page images
PDF
EPUB

DESIGNS OF THE FRENCH.

75

-

[ocr errors]

CHAPTER XXII.

1749-1755.

THE FOURTH INTER COLONIAL WAR.

Designs of the French - Expeditions of Céloron de Bienville and Marin-Grant to the Ohio Company Dinwiddie protests against French intrusions Birth of Washington — Education and early life - His first expedition into the wilderness - His visit to Joncaire-Intercourse with Legardeur de Saint-Pierre Return to Williamsburg - Assembly votes money to carry on offensive warfare Washington placed second in command of forces raised Starts to the Ohio Erects fort at Great Meadows Attacked by the French - The affair with Jumonville Washington unjustly blamed Fort Necessity builtWashington capitulates O Convention of colonial governors at Albany The plan of confederation Franklin's remarks on the plan — John Penn and the western purchase — Plans for another campaign - Admiral Boscawen in Acadia - Washington resigns command in disgust - Braddock appointed commander-in-chief - Various expeditions planned - Interview between Braddock and Franklin - Washington takes service under Braddock - Braddock treats Washington's advice with contempt - Braddock ambushed and defeated-His death- - Effect upon the colonies - Sir Shirley advances against Niagara William Johnson and King Hendrick - Battle of Lake George Money voted by colonies for defense Washington's letter to Dinwiddie regarding distress on the frontier. Appendix to Chapter XXII. — Coxe and Penn's plan of confederation.

-

previous

As we have seen in chapters, the French had laid deep designs to secure control of the entire valley of the Mississippi from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, basing their claim upon the law that discovery and occupation give jurisdiction over the land and waters discovered and occupied. While the English colonies were content to confine themselves to the eastern coast region, there was little occasion to interfere with the plans and purposes of the French, but as the hardy English pioneers began to settle the interior and to learn more about the territory, they began to realize its immense value. They determined to set up a counter claim to jurisdiction over the soil. Numerous military and trading posts had been established by the French along the frontier from Canada to New Orleans,

[ocr errors]

and as a further indication that the
territory belonged to the French,
they had carved the national lily on
the forest trees,
the forest trees, also sinking a
number of copper plates in the
ground. The French laid claim to
the territory as being its discoverers,
while the English based their claim on
the fact that grants of territory had
been given them extending in a direct
line from the Atlantic westward to
the Pacific, on the strength of which
they claimed the right to all
the thousands of miles interven-
ing between
Atlantic and
the Pacific. Neither nation, however,
considered it necessary to pay the
slightest attention to the fact that the
Indian occupants had prior claim on

the

See the language of Parkman previously quoted and more fully in his Conspiracy of Pontiac, pp. 6-95.

76

*

EXPEDITIONS OF CELORON AND MARIN.

the land. From this condition of affairs,† it was evident that actual collision between the contending parties could not long be deferred.

The French realized the importance of the gateway to the west, and the Marquis de la Galissonnière, governor of Canada, in June, 1749, sent a party of 250 men under Céloron de Bienville to inspect the Ohio and Niagara rivers and to take possession of the contiguous territory in the name of France. This party crossed lakes Ontario and Erie, and finally reached the Alleghany River, at which point on July 19 Céloron took possession of the country in the name of Louis XV., burying inscribed plates

* In November, 1749, when Gist was surveying for the Ohio Company the lands on the south side of the Ohio River as far down as the great Kanawha, an old Delaware chief, observing what he was about, propounded to him a shrewd inquiry —“The French claim all the land on one side of the Ohio, the English claim all the land on the other side:- tell me now, where does the Indian's land lie?" At a conference with Sir William Johnson, a Mohawk is reported to have said: "I must now say it is not with our consent that the French have committed any hostilities at the Ohio. We don't know what you Christians, English and French together, intend. We are so hemmed in by both that we have hardly a hunting place left. In a little while, if we find a bear in a tree, there will immediately appear an owner of the land to challenge the property and hinder us from killing it, which is our livelihood. We are so perplexed between both that we hardly know what to say or think."- King, Ohio, p. 87. "Poor savages," says Mr. Irving, "between their fathers,' the French, and their brothers' the English, they were in a fair way of being most lovingly shared out of the whole country."— Life of Washington, vol. i., p. 67.

[ocr errors]

†A. G. Bradley, in his The Fight with France for North America, pp. 1-39, gives an excellent resumé of the conditions existing in the English colonies and in New France at this time.

in proof of his action. He also endeavored to gain the friendship of the Indians by princely gifts.* In 1753 the new governor of Canada, the Marquis Duquesne,† sent out a force of 1,500 men under Marin, which crossed Lake Erie to the west of Niagara River and landed at Presqu' Isle, where the town of Erie now stands. There a blockhouse was erected, after which they crossed the forests to French Creek and erected another blockhouse named Fort Lé Bœuf. At this place Marin Marin was taken ill, and Legardeur de SaintPierre took his place. Duquesne had also intended to build a fort at Venango, where French Creek flows into the Alleghany and had already sent

[blocks in formation]

* Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, vol. i., pp. 36-53 (8th ed., 1886); Bradley, The Fight with France for North America, pp. 40-46; The Mémoir by Galissonnière in N. Y. Col. Docs., vol. x., pp. 220-232; C. W. Butterfield, History of Ohio: English Interests Paramount Among the Ohio Savages, in Magazine of Western History, vol. vi., pp. 103-117; O. H. Marshall, De Céloron's Expedition to the Ohio in 1749, in the Magazine of American History, vol. ii., pp. 129-150: T. J. Chapman, Céloron's Voyage down the Allegheny, in Magazine of Western History, vol. v., pp. 462-467; Céloron's journal in O. H. Marshall's Historical Writings, pp. 237-273; Winsor, The Mississippi Basin, pp. 252-256; Hulbert, Historic Highways of America, vol. vii., chap. iv.; Rufus King, Ohio: First Fruits of the Ordinance of 1787, pp. 60-62. A facsimile of one of Céloron's plates is in Pennsylvania Archives, 2d series, vol. vi., p. 80, and Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, vol. v., p. 9.

Duquesne's instructions are in N. Y. Col. Docs., vol. x., pp. 242-245, an extract being also given in Hart, American History Told by Contemporaries, vol. ii., pp. 354-356.

GRANT TO THE OHIO COMPANY.

77

English trading post there and forti- Thomas Walker in March, 1750, he fied it.*

In the meantime, shortly after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, a grant of 500,000 acres of land on the east bank of the Ohio River with the privilege of trading with the Indians was given to a party of London merchants and Virginia land speculators, known as the Ohio Company.† The French naturally regarded this grant as an encroachment on their journey, since they claimed sovereignty over the entire region watered by the tributaries of the Mississippi. The English, however, set up a counter claim in the name of the Six Nations, who, under the treaties of Utrecht and Aix-laChapelle, were regarded as being under British protection. The terri tory owned by the Six Nations, it was said, covered the entire eastern portion of the Mississippi Valley and also the basin of the lower lakes. The Ohio Company, in order to have a foothold in the territory, proceeded to have it surveyed, for this purpose sending out a party under Dr.

Fiske, New France and New England, pp. 263-270; Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, vol. i., pp. 128-132; Bradley, pp. 56-57. See also C. W. Butterfield, History of Ohio: The Ohio Valley Invaded by the French, in Magazine of Western History, vol. vi., pp. 413-424; Winsor, The Mississippi Basin, p. 300 et seq.; Buell, Life of Sir William Johnson, pp. 120-121; King, Ohio, pp. 72-73.

For papers relating to the Ohio Company see Berthold Fernow, The Ohio Valley in Colonial Days, chaps. iv.-v., and App. D.; Moore, The Northwest Under Three Flags, pp. 63-84; Howison, History of Virginia, vol. i., chap. viii.; Campbell, History of Virginia, chap. lix. VOL. II-6

going up the Cumberland toward the Ohio and preparing maps and charts of the territory. In 1750 and 1751 Christopher Gist was sent out to visit the Miamis, Shawnees and Delawares, in Ohio, his party founding Picktown (or Pickawillany) on the Big Miami, 150 miles from its mouth.* This step was regarded by the French as an aggression, and they consequently built a new fort on the shores of Lake Erie, and began preparation to drive out the opponents from the territory and take forcible possession of the disputed lands. In anticipation of this step, Robert Dinwiddie, who in 1752 had been appointed lieutenant-governor of Virginia, sent out a messenger, in the guise of a trader, to ascertain the general state of feeling among the In

V.

[ocr errors]

* Bancroft, vol. ii., pp. 362-366; King, Ohio, pp. 64-69; Walker's and Gist's journals, the first ed. by J. S. Johnston, are in the Filson Club Publications, no. xiii. (Louisville, 1898). Gist's journal is also in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 3d series, vol. V., pp. 101-108. Much other material on these expeditions will be found in N. Y. Col. Docs., vol. vii. and in Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, vol. For Gist's instructions see Pownal, Topographical Description of North America, app. See also R. W. McFarland, Forts Loraine and Pickawillany, in Ohio Archæological and Historical Publications, vol. viii., pp. 479–486, and on the routes into the Ohio Valley, in general, Fernow, The Ohio Valley in Colonial Days; Winsor, The Mississippi Basin, p. 277 et seq.; Archer B. Hulbert, Waterways of Westward Expansion: The Ohio River and Its Tributaries; A. Huidekoper, Indian and French History in Western Pennsylvania, in Magazine of American History, vol. i., p. 683 and vol. ii., p. 52; Ellen C. Semple, American History and Its Geographical Conditions.

78

EARLY LIFE OF WASHINGTON.

dians and to spy on the operations of the French. The home authorities urged Dinwiddie to spare no pains and to lose no time in erecting some forts on the frontier and for this purpose artillery and munitions of war were sent over. The French, however, had already occupied the territory and they had a considerable force on hand to act as emergency might require. In 1753, therefore, Dinwiddie determined to send a messenger to the nearest French post to demand an explanation and also to ask for the release of a number of traders who had been captured by the French a short time previously. The messenger selected by Dinwiddie was George Washington, who now for the first time appears in connection with colonial affairs.

It seems necessary, before proceeding further with the general narrative, that we give a short sketch of Washington's early life and training. A century before George Washington's birth, two Englishmen, Lawrence and John Washington, emigrated to Virginia and settled in Westmoreland County, between the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers.* In 1694 Augustine Washington, grandson of John, was born, and he inherited the vast estate on Bridge's

For the geneology of the Washington family see Sparks, Life of George Washington, p. 1 et seq. and App. 1., pp. 497-512; Henry Cabot Lodge, George Washington, p. 28 et seq.; Washington Irving, Life of George Washington, vol. i., chap. i.

Creek, where it flows into the Potomac. Augustine was twice married and two children, Lawrence and Augustine survived him. George, son of Augustine, was born February 22, 1732, in the homestead at Bridge's Creek, of which not a vestige now remains. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to an estate in Stafford County,

County, opposite opposite Fredericksburg.* George's eldest brother, Lawrence, had been sent to England to be educated, but George received only the commonest advantages of the day and was instructed only in the ordinary branches of knowledge. When George was about seven or eight years of age, Lawrence returned from England and immediately a warm and abiding friendship sprang up between the two brothers, which lasted until Lawrence's death. On April 12, 1743, Augustine Washington died, leaving his family in fairly comfortable circumstances. The training of the family, therefore, devolved upon Mrs. Mary Washington, who thereupon became the guide and instructor of George. Being a woman of great energy and integrity, she very ably managed the property which had been left to her, keeping it intact so that each child would receive his share in the same condition in which it was left by the father. She proved herself entirely worthy of this trust, and as the years passed she was amply

* Irving, p. 21.

HIS SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS AND MILITARY TRAINING.

rewarded for her labor by the conduct of her offspring in later life.*

Washington had always been fond of adventure, particularly such adventure as was connected with a military life, and in his constant intercourse with his brother Lawrence and Lord Fairfax, this love of adventure grew upon him. According to some historians, in 1746, when Washington was about fourteen years of age, there was some talk of his going to sea, and his mother was strongly urged to send him. Irving states that even a midshipman's warrant was obtained. for him, but when it came to the point his mother finally decided decided against his going, not liking the liking the notion of parting with her son, even in her anxiety to have him earn his bread. George therefore gave up the plan of seeking fame by a naval career. He then returned to school

• “Much effusion has been expended over the wonderful traits of 'Mary, the mother of Washington'; and her sagacity, her influence in forming character, her example in the way of method, order and frugality, have been greatly exploited as having exerted a prodigious influence on the career of her illustrious son. But it is fair to say that Mary Washington was only a fair example of hundreds of Virginian widows, who, before and since her time,

deprived of the support of a husband, have

deliberately, seriously, and voluntarily dedicated their lives to the training of their children, and the preservation of their estates, committed to them by the devotion, the respect, and the intelligence of the father and husband who had gone."― Bradley T. Johnson, General Washington, in Great Commanders series, p. 11. (Copyright by D. Appleton & Co.) See also Lodge, George Washington, vol. i., pp. 38-39, 45 et seq. † Life of Washington, vol. i., p. 32.

Regarding the Weems mythical tales of

79

and devoted his time to the improvement of his mind, paying especial attention to mathematics and those studies which were particularly fitted to train him for civil or military service. During his whole course of study, his conduct was marked by method, order and accuracy. As Irving says, "He found time to do everything and to do it well. He had acquired the magic of method, which, of itself, works wonders."* Being active and energetic and of large frame and great muscular strength, he naturally delighted in all kinds of games of an athletic nature, and soon became a leader among his school fellows. After leaving school he continued his studies in mathematics and trigonometry, also taking up military tactics and becoming expert in the use of fire arms. He also associated as much as possible with army officers who had served in the recent wars, and from them learned much regarding military science. But he could not be content with simply studying from books. He decided that practical experience was both necessary and profitable. Having already had a little experience in surveying, he was now engaged to undertake the task of laying out and determining the boundaries of Lord Fairfax's possessions, particularly such as lay beyond the Blue Ridge. The object of this was to bring to terms

Washington's boyhood, see Lodge, George Washington, vol. i.. p. 39 et seq.

*Irving, Life of Washington, vol. i., p. 33.

« PreviousContinue »