frontier war were to Braddock. The former was full of suggestions, and cheerfully placed his experience at the service of his general; but the latter was utterly bigoted in his belief in disciplined troops, and paid no attention to Washington's advice, and refused to secure any Indian allies. The march was conducted on the soundest military principles, which, however, were never adapted for wilderness campaigning, and a laborious month was spent in advancing little more than a hundred miles. On the march, Washington was for a time disabled by fever; and when he was unavoidably left behind the troops, he obtained a solemn promise from Braddock that the fort should not be attacked before he could rejoin the staff. On July 8, though still weak from the effects of his illness, he was brought to the front in a covered waggon; and on the 9th he took his place on horseback among the aides-de-camp. He was not a day too

soon to share the fighting.

As the troops were marching along in unsuspicious carelessness, a sudden and murderous musketry fire broke out from the bushes and trees on either side of the line of march. The attack was so sudden that the British troops were thrown into the greatest confusion. They were unable to see their enemies, who kept pouring an irregular and distracting fire into the ranks of the regulars. An attempt was made to return the fire; but the disciplined files and platoons which Braddock refused to alter only offered a conspicuous mark for the Indian and French riflemen, and were helpless in attacking them.

The

Braddock and his officers displayed the most undaunted courage, but all their efforts could not rally their men. Virginian troops, accustomed to this mode of warfare,

adopted the only possible means of resistance, and, sheltering themselves under cover of the trees and bushes, in some degree maintained an effective reply. But at last the rout became general; the soldiers fled in the wildest confusion, sweeping their officers along with them. Only the enemy's desire for plunder saved the fugitives from death or capture. General Braddock was mortally wounded, and died four days afterwards. Washington had surpassed himself in the direful affair. Early in the action he was left the only undisabled aide-de-camp, and as he dashed hither and thither he became the mark for many a bullet. Some years afterwards an old Indian chief told Washington that he and his braves had deliberately selected him as a mark for their bullets, as he galloped about with the general's orders, and that they had fired at him over and over again. But when they failed to hit him they came to the conclusion that he bore a charmed life and was under the protection of the Great Spirit himself.

Two horses were shot under him, and four bullets passed through his coat, but he escaped without a scratch. A fellow-officer testifies that he behaved with the greatest courage and resolution. Notwithstanding his late enfeebling illness, he gave evidence of wonderful strength and endurance.

'I saw him,' said an old soldier who had been present, 'take hold of a brass field-piece as if it had been a stick. He looked like a fury; he tore the sheet-lead from the touchhole; he placed one hand on the muzzle, the other on the breech; he pulled with this, and pushed with that, and wheeled it round as if it had been nothing. He tore the ground like a bar-share.'

From Fort Cumberland Washington wrote to his brother :-

'As I have heard, since my arrival at this place, a circumstantial account of my death and dying speech, I take this early opportunity of contradicting the first, and of assuring you that I have not composed the latter. But, by the allpowerful dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, though death was levelling my companions on every side of me. We have been most scandalously beaten by a trifling body of men, but fatigue and want of time prevent me from giving you any of the details, until I have the happiness of seeing you at Mount Vernon, which I now most earnestly wish for, since we are driven in thus far. A feeble state of health obliges me to halt here for two or three days to recover a little strength, that I may thereby be enabled to proceed homeward with more ease.'

·

His military experiences hitherto had been far from auspicious; and they had both weakened his health and trenched on his purse. Washington himself summed up the results in a letter to his brother Augustine :-'I was employed to go a journey in the winter, when I believe few or none would have undertaken it, and what did I get for it? My expenses borne! I was then appointed, with trifling pay, to conduct a handful of men to the Ohio. What did I get by that? Why, after putting myself to a considerable expense in equipping and providing necessaries for the campaign, I went out, was soundly beaten, and lost all ! Came in and had my commission taken from me; or, in other words, my command reduced, under pretence of an order from home. I then went out a volunteer with General Braddock, and lost all my horses and many other things. But this being a

voluntary act, I ought not to have mentioned it; nor should I have done it were it not to show that I have been on the losing order ever since I entered the service, which is now nearly two years.' He forgot to reckon among the results a varied and invaluable experience, and an immense popularity with his fellow-citizens.

He continued to act as adjutant-general of the northern district of Virginia; and when, apprehensive of approaching danger, the Assembly of Virginia voted a supply of £40,000 and raised a regiment of 1000 men, the command-in-chief was offered to Washington on his own terms. Every one was satisfied with the appointment except Dinwiddie, who preferred the claims of a Colonel Innes; and the dissatisfaction of the governor afterwards subjected Washington to various slights and ungracious acts. His popularity with the people was very great. An instance of this high appreciation of his merits,' writes Washington Irving, occurs in a sermon, preached on the 17th of August 1755, by the Rev. Samuel Davis, wherein he cites him as "that heroic youth, Colonei Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has hitherto preserved in so signal a manner for some important service to his country." The expressions of the worthy clergyman may have been deemed enthusiastic at the time; viewed in connection with subsequent events, they appear almost prophetic.'

Headquarters were fixed at Winchester, and the commander-in-chief had much difficulty to encounter in the pusillanimity and insolence of the people, who withheld all aid, and yet were sensitive to the slightest breath of alarm. The inefficiency of the militia laws was the chief reason of the disorders, and Washington therefore exerted himself strenu

ously to secure the passing of a stricter militia bill, while he kept his own men under a firm discipline, and trained them diligently in all kinds of tactics. The threatenings on the frontier and the incursions of French Indians began to grow more serious and frequent; and the people of Virginia bestirred themselves languidly, and, under Dinwiddie, not very wisely. Washington was hastened home by expresses from an expedition he had made to lay a point of professional etiquette before General Shirley at Boston, commanding in America; and his passionate appeals extorted some assistance from the governor and assembly. But his suggestions were ignored, and a chain of small forts was built along the frontier line, to man which there was not a reliable supply of troops; and a large central fort was erected near Winchester.

But Washington was harassed with vague and contradictory orders; the governor was unfriendly, and treated him with no great courtesy. As Washington himself wrote in self-defence to Lord Loudoun, who succeeded in 1757 to the governorship of Virginia and the general command over all British America: 'The orders I receive are full of ambiguity. I am left like a wanderer in the wilderness to proceed at hazard. I am answerable for consequences, and blamed without the privilege of defence. . . . It is not to be wondered at if, under such peculiar circumstances, I should be sick of a service which promises so little of a soldier's reward.' During 1756 Washington stuck to his thankless post; but in the winter of 1757-58 illness compelled his retirement for several months. In 1758 another expedition was to be despatched against Fort Duquesne, under General Forbes; and Washington, as commander-in-chief of the Virginian forces, now comprising two regiments of 1000 men each, was delighted to take part in