ginia militia, with young George Washington as his aide-de-camp. His way was rough and hard, a good deal of mountain climbing to do, rivers to ford, and trackless forests to pass through. The soldiers, fresh from England, used to their own settled and level country, hardly knew how to endure such hardships, and began to be discouraged and tired out before they had hardly begun their march. The colonist-troops, on the other hand, used to Indian fighting and

life in the wilderness, were quite at home there. But General Braddock, who was a high-tempered, arrogant British officer, made up his mind beforehand to feel nothing but contempt for the colonists and their leaders, and paid no attention to their suggestions, when, if he had had the sense to have listened to them, they might have helped him greatly. The consequence was that Braddock was attacked by a party of French and Indians before he reached Fort Duquesne, and met with a terrible defeat. The general was killed, and if it had not been for some of the despised colonists with Washington at their head, very few English would have been left alive. As it was, they lost hundreds of soldiers, while the French lost only a handful. And this was the end of Braddock's Expedition.

Braddock.

In the mean time, General Winslow, the New England commander, had started with his party for the Bay of Fundy. Nearly all these men were Massachusetts men, who hated the French and the Catholics more intensely than any other of the colonies. They believed that almost every attack of the Indians on their farms and villages during all the wars of William and Anne and George, was due to the influence of the Jesuits, whom they abhorred with all their might and main. Consequently they were delighted to march against Nova Scotia, which, although it belonged to the English by treaty with the French, was really settled entirely by French Catholics. These people were called French "neutrals," because they would not fight against the French, and were not allowed to fight for them. They were peacefully working their farms and minding their own affairs, with war and rumors of war all about them.

The English chiefs, however, feared that these French neutrals would take part with their brother Frenchmen, and I have very little doubt they might some of them have done so. But even that fear did not justify the cruel conduct of the English. I am sure that you will think so, too, when I tell you what they did.

As soon as they arrived in the beautiful Basin of Minas, the harbor on whose borders these French neutrals were settled, they issued an order that the people all over the country should meet in their parish churches, and hear a proclamation, which the English wished to read to them.

The people in the settlements - there were about 15,000 in all -left their work and flocked to the churches. The farmer left his harvest field, the blacksmith his anvil, and the wife and maiden their spinning-wheels. When they got inside their churches they found themselves surrounded by crowds of red-coated British soldiers. Unarmed, and unable to resist, they were hustled to the harbor, and crowded on board the English ships like herds of sheep and lambs who are to be sent to the slaughter-house. Families were torn apart; wives lost their husbands; and mothers looking over their flock of little ones, often found part of their children missing. Outcries and bitter sobbing pierced the air, and ought to have pierced the hearts of their oppressors. But the ships sailed away with these poor people, and the hearts of the English remained steeled. As they sailed down the harbor in the twilight, the captives saw the soft September sky painted with a terrible glare, which lighted with lurid glow the whole heavens. It was the burning of their homes and barns and corn-ricks, which their merciless enemies had destroyed, that they might also destroy

the last hope of the poor Acadians of ever finding their homes again.

All over the country these poor people were scattered. Many never met again the dear ones from whom they had been torn, and died of homesickness and heartbreak. A little company of them went down to the mouth of the Mississippi, and settled in the country about New Orleans. Some of the young maidens and children, separated from their parents, were made "bound servants" in the families of English colonists. Our poet Longfellow has written a lovely poem called "Evan

Evangeline.

geline," which tells all this sad story of Acadie, and the history

of one of these Acadian exiles, torn from the home she had loved, and all she held dear.

The next division of the army was commanded by Sir William Johnson. He was born in England, and had been appointed "Indian Agent" (or manager of affairs and trade with the Indians) of the colony of New York. He lived in a fine mansion, which he built upon an eminence overlooking the Mohawk River, and had been very successful in making friends with King Hendrick, the chief of the Mohawk Indians, and in gaining the good-will of the tribe. Sir William, who was a tall, elegant looking man, had adopted a dress not unlike that of an Indian chief, and wore leggings of deer-skin, and belt embroidered with wampum, so that he looked, when browned by the sun and

Sir William Johnson.

wind, like a handsome Indian warrior. He had also taken an Indian maiden, the daughter of a chief, for his wife, and this aided to make his friendship with the Mohawk tribe more secure.

These Indians, therefore, were quite ready to come to the aid of Sir William Johnson when the war broke out; and when he began his march against the French forts at Crown Point and Ticonderoga, a large party of Indian allies went with him. A party of the English forces had already built a fort a few miles above Albany called Fort Edward, and Sir William joined them and went

All at

on toward the place where he expected to begin his siege. once he heard that a body of French troops were coming on to attack him. He sent ahead a party of Indians and Americans to meet them, and these forces were beaten back by the French, and their two leaders killed. Both these leaders were men whose names ought to be remembered. The Indian was King Hendrick, the Mohawk chief, a noble and brave Indian. The American leader was Colonel Ephraim Williams, who, just before setting out to take part in this war, had made his will, giving his property to estab

lish a college in Massachusetts. The institution now exists under the name of Williams College. This college remains as a proof that the early founders of this country remembered, in all their dark days of Indian warfare, the necessity for schools and universities in this new land.

After dispersing the forces of King Hendrick and Colonel Williams, the French swept down upon Johnson. There they suffered severe retribution. Johnson had had time to get ready for them, and, when they attacked him, defeated them completely, taking their leader prisoner. He concluded, however, not to go on to Crown Point, and contented himself with building the fort at the northern part of Lake George (Fort William Henry). He also ordered the building of a line of forts all along the frontier from Albany to Oswego, and the whole of northern New York began to be well fortified and assume a warlike appearance. The expedition under Governor Shirley against the forts on the lakes did not begin favorably. Indeed it began so unfavorably that it was decided to abandon it for that time, and after sending a few hundred men to defend Fort William Henry, just built by Johnson's men, Shirley returned to Boston.

Block-house.

Such were the results of the four plans of campaign for the year 1755, which celebrated the opening of the great struggle for possession of this country between the French and English. You can imagine if you like what a difference it would have made in this United States, and in the people who live here, if the French had been in the end victorious. I doubt very much if there would have been any such country as the United States, if the colonies here had been made subjects of France.