strance the real one was to ascertain the number, strength, and position of the French garrisons.

It was a perilous enterprise. There was danger of perishing in the wilderness. There was danger from the tomahawk of the savage. There was danger that the French might not allow the commissioner to return with information so valuable to their foes; and, in those rude times and regions, it was very easy so to arrange matters that the party could be plundered and massacred. No suitable person could be found to run these risks until George Washington volunteered his services. He was then but twenty years and six months of age. As Gov. Dinwiddie, a sturdy old Scotchman, eagerly accepted the proffered service, he exclaimed,

"Truly, you are a brave lad; and, if you play your cards well, you shall have no cause to repent your bargain.”

Washington started from Williamsburg on this perilous expedition on the 14th of November, 1753. There is something very sublime in the calm courage with which he set out, well knowing that he was to pass through the region of hostile Indian tribes; and that it was their practice, not merely to kill their prisoners, but to prolong their sufferings, as far as possible, through the most exquisite and diabolical tortures. He took with him but eight men, two of them being Indians. They soon passed the few sparse settlements which were springing up near the Atlantic coast, and plunged into the pathless forest. Winter was fast approaching, and its dismal gales wailed through the tree-tops. The early snow crowned the summits of the mountains, and the autumnal rains had swollen the brooks and the rivers.

Guided by the sagacity of the Indians, they threaded the forest until they reached the Monongahela, which, flowing from the south, unites with the Alleghany from the north, and forms the Ohio. Here they took a canoe, and in eight days paddled down the river to the mouth of the Alleghany, where Pittsburg now stands. They then descended the Ohio, with an ever-vigilant eye, for a distance of a hundred and twenty miles, to the principal port of the French commandant. Having successfully accomplished thus much of his mission, and fearing that the Indians might of their own will, or instigated by the French, intercept his return, he started, with but one faithful companion, to make his way back through the wilderness on foot, with their packs.

on their backs, and their guns in their hands. Washington's sus picions proved not to be groundless. Some Indians were put upon their trail by the French. Washington's familiarity with wilderness life and Indian strategy enabled him to elude them. One Indian, however, succeeded in joining them, and offered his services as a guide. Treacherously he led them from their path, hoping to lure them into some ambush, and striving, but in vain, with all the arts of Indian cunning, to get possession of Washing

ton's gun.

At night, seeing them so much fatigued by their day's tramp that he thought that they could not possibly pursue him, he, at fifteen paces distant, fired at Washington, missed his aim, and sprang into the woods. He was caught. Washington's companion, Gist, was for despatching him on the spot; but Washington, regarding the wretched savage but as the tool of others, insisted upon letting him go. They did so; and then, without rest and without a guide, pushed on through the long December night. When they reached the Alleghany River, opposite the present site of Pittsburg, they found the banks of the river fringed with ice, and large blocks drifting furiously down the middle of the stream. All day long, with one poor hatchet, they toiled to build a raft. It was a frail affair. As they struggled upon it through the broken masses of ice, it threatened every moment to go to pieces.

In the middle of the stream, Washington's setting-pole became entangled, and he was thrown into the river where it was ten feet deep. He was saved from drowning by clinging to a log. At length, they succeeded in reaching an island, where they passed a dismal night, their clothes frozen into coats of mail. The night was so cold, that in the morning the river was frozen over, and they crossed upon the ice. Washington's journal of this tour was published in London, and attracted much attention, as it contained conclusive proof that the French would resist any attempts of the English to establish their settlements upon the Ohio. The Legislature of Virginia was in session at Williamsburg when Washington returned. Modestly, and unconscious that he would attract any attention, he went into the gallery to observe the proceedings. The speaker chanced to see him, and, rising, proposed that

"The thanks of this house be given to Major Washington, who now sits in the gallery, for the gallant manner in which he has

executed the important trust lately reposed in him by his Excel lency the Governor."

Every member of the house rose to his feet; and Washington was greeted with a simultaneous and enthusiastic burst of applause. Embarrassed by the unexpected honor, and unaccustomed to public speaking, the young hero endeavored in vain to give utterance to his thanks. The speaker of the house happily came to his rescue, saying, "Sit down, Major Washington: your modesty is alone equal to your merit.”

Gov. Dinwiddie, a reckless, headstrong man, instantly organized a force, with orders "to drive away, kill, or seize as prisoners, all persons, not the subjects of the King of Great Britain, who should attempt to take possession of the lands on the Ohio or any of its tributaries."

A regiment of about four hundred men was raised. Washington was appointed colonel. His mission was to march again. through the wilderness, and drive the French from the Ohio. Washington had selected the point at the junction of the Monongahela and the Alleghany for a fort. But the French anticipated him. As he was hurrying to this spot with his garrison, and with the tools to construct a fort, he was disappointed and alarmed to hear that the French were already at work, under skilful engi neers, in throwing up their ramparts upon the very spot which he had selected. A thousand men from Canada had descended the river in sixty bateaux and three hundred canoes. They had already eighteen pieces of cannon in position. Washington had arrived very near Fort Duquesne before he received these tidings. The thought of attacking the French in such overpowering numbers, and behind their ramparts, was madness. Retreat, in their exhausted state, back through the wilderness, was almost impossible. Besides, the French, through their spies, had kept a close watch upon them. Their Indian allies were on the march to intercept their retreat. Washington was then but twenty-two years of age. His sufferings, in view of the humiliating surrender of his whole force without striking a blow, must have been awful. He was ready for almost any act of desperation rather than to do this. As yet, there was no war declared. The nations were at peace: not a hostile gun had been fired. In building the fort on disputed territory, which was then in the hands of the French, the French had merely anticipated the English by a few days. It

was said that Indians allies were marching against the English; but this was rumor merely. No such foe had appeared. There is some little diversity of statement in reference to what immediately followed; but, so far as can now be ascertained, the following appear to be the facts:

The French say that they sent out M. Jumonville as a civil messenger to confer with the English respecting the object of their approach, as there was no declaration of war. Washington was informed that a party of French, from the fort, was on the march to attack him by surprise. Just then, there came a night dark and stormy, with floods of rain. Washington took forty men, leaving the rest to guard the camp, and through the midnight tempest and gloom, guided by some friendly Indians, reached, just before daylight in the morning, the camp where Jumonville and his men were unsuspectingly sleeping. Washington, regarding them as foes who were on the march to strike him by surprise, fell instantly upon them. There was a short, fierce conflict. Jumonville and ten of his men were killed. A few escaped. The rest, twenty-five in number, were taken prisoners. The war was thus inaugurated, a long, cruel, bloody war of seven years.

This occurrence created great excitement at the time, and Washington was very severely blamed; but, now that the pas sions of that day have passed, the French magnanimously concur in the general verdict, that the event must be regarded as an untoward accident. Nothing is more certain than that Washington would have shrunk from any dishonorable deed. The peculiar perplexity and peril in which the young soldier was placed shield his fame from tarnish.

But this act opened the drama of war with all its horrors. The French, apprised of the deed, and regarding it as one of the grossest of outrages (for Jumonville had really been sent as a peaceful messenger), immediately despatched fifteen hundred men, French and Indians, to avenge the wrong. Washington could not retreat; neither could he fight such overwhelming numbers with any hope of success. Still he threw up such breastworks as could be hastily constructed, and, with less than four hundred men, fought for a whole day against the army which surrounded him. Starvation compelled him to capitulate. M. de Villers, the French commander, was generous. The Virginia troops were allowed to retire with every thing in their possession except

their artillery. Thus they returned unmolested to the settle. ments.

On the whole, Washington's character did not suffer from this adventure. That he should be able to secure such favorable terms of capitulation, and march back his little force through the wilderness, notwithstanding the lawless character of the Indians, who, in such formidable numbers, were marshalled against him, was considered evidence of both sagacity and military genius. Many of the wild frontiersmen, waifs from all lands, who had been gathered into the ranks of Washington's army, were coarse and wicked men. Washington, as a gentleman and a Christian, abhorred the vice of profane swearing, to which they were very much addicted. The following record from one of the orders of the day will explain itself:

"Col. Washington has observed that the men of his regiment are very profane and reprobate. He takes this opportunity to inform them of his great displeasure at such practices; and assures them, that, if they do not leave them off, they shall be severely punished. The officers are desired, if they hear any man swear or make use of an oath or execration, to order the offender twenty-five lashes immediately, without a court-martial. For a second offence, he shall be more severely punished."

On another occasion, when commander-in-chief of the army struggling for our national independence, he invited a number of officers to dine with him. At the table, one of the guests, in conversation, uttered an oath. Washington dropped his knife and fork as suddenly as if he had been struck a blow, and thus arrested the attention of the whole company. In very deliberate and solemn tones he then said, "I thought that I had invited only gentlemen to my table."

Early in the spring of 1755, Gen. Braddock, a self-conceited, stubborn man, landed in Virginia with two regiments of regular troops from Great Britain. Arrogant in the pride of his technical military education, he despised alike Frenchmen, Indians, and colonists. With his force, Braddock started on a march through the wilderness for the reduction of Fort Duquesne. Washington accompanied him as volunteer aid. As he abandoned important domestic business, and received no remuneration whatever for his services, he must probably have been influenced by patriotism and the love of adventure. In a straggling line four miles in