"God bless King George!" cried Woodchuck warmly, "and send him all prosperity. There's not a more loyal man in the land than I am; but it vexes me all the more to see his ministers throwing away his people's hearts, and losing his possessions into the bargain. But I'll tell you how it is, major--at least how I think it is--and then you'll see.
"I must first go back a bit. Here are we, the English, in the middle of North America, and we have got the French on both sides of us. Well, we have a right to the country all the way across the continent--and we must have it, for it is our only safety. But the French don't want us to be safe, and so they are trying to get behind us, and push us into the sea. They have been trying it a long time, and we have taken no notice. They have pushed their posts from Canidy, right along by the Wabash and the Ohio, from Lake Erie to the Mississippi; and they have built forts, won over the Ingians, drawing a string round us, which they will tighten every day, unless we cut it.
"And what have the ministers been doing all the time? Why, for a long time they did nothing at all. First, the French were suffered boldly to call the country their own, and to carry off our traders and trappers, and send them into Canidy, and never a word said by our people. Then they built fort after fort, till troops can march and goods can go, with little or no trouble, from Quebec to New Orleans; and all that this produced was a speech from Governor Hamilton, and a message from Governor Dinwiddie. The last, indeed, sent to England, and made representations; but all he got was an order to repel force by force, if he could, but to be quite sure that he did so on the undoubted territories of King George.
"Undoubted! Why, the French made the doubt, and then took advantage of it. Dinwiddie, however, had some spirit, and, with what help he could get, he began to build a fort himself, in the best-chosen spot of the whole country, just by the meeting of the Ohio and the Monongahela. But he had only one man to the French ten, and not a regular company amongst them. So the French marched with a thousand soldiers, and plenty of cannon and stores, turned his people out, took possession of his half-finished fort, and completed it themselves. That was not likely to make the Ingians respect us.
"Well, then, Colonel Washington, the Virginian, and the best man in the land, built Fort Necessity; but they left him without forces to defend it, and he was obliged to surrender to Villiers, and a force big enough to eat him up. That did not raise us with our redskins; and a French force never moved without a whole herd of Ingians, supposed to be in friendship with us, but ready to scalp us whenever we were defeated.
"Then came Braddock's mad march upon Fort Duquesne, where he and a'most all who was with him were killed by a handful of Ingians amongst the bushes--fifteen hundred men dispersed, killed, and scalped, by not four hundred savages--all the artillery taken, and baggage beyond count--think of that! Then Shirley made a great parade of marching against Fort Niagara; but he turned back almost as soon as he set out; and, had it not been for some good luck, on the north side of Massachusetts Bay, and the victory of Johnson over Dieskau, you would not have had a tribe hold fast to us. They were all wavering as fast as they could--I could see that, as plain as possible, from old Hendrik's talk; and the French Jesuits were in amongst them day and night to bring the Five Nations over. This was the year afore last.
"Well, what did they do last year? Nothing at all, but lose Oswego. Lord Loudun, and Abercrombie, and Webb, marched and countermarched, and consulted, and played the fool, while bloody Montcalm was besieging Mercer, taking Oswego, breaking the terms he had expressly granted, and suffering his Ingians to scalp and torture his prisoners of war before his eyes. Well, this was just about the middle of August; but it was judged too late to do anything more, and nothing was done. There was merry work in Albany, and people danced and sang; but the Ingians got a strange notion that the English lion was better at roaring than he was at biting.
"And now, major, what have we done this year to make up for all the blunders of the last five or six? Why, Lord Loudun stripped the whole of this province of its men and guns, to go to Halifax and attack Louisburg. When he got to Halifax, he exercised his men for a month, heard a false report that Louisburg was too strong and too well prepared to be taken, and sailed back to New York. In the meanwhile, Montcalm took Fort William Henry on Lake George, and, as usual, let the garrison be butchered by his Ingians.
"So, now the redskins see that the English arms are contemptible on every part of this continent, and the French complete masters of the lakes and the whole western country. The Five Nations see their long house open to our enemies on three sides, and not a step taken to give them assistance or protection. We have abandoned them. Can you expect them not to abandon us?"
The young officer, long before this painful question was asked, had leaned his elbows on the table, and covered his eyes and part of his face with his hand. Walter and Edith both gazed at him earnestly, while their father bent his eyes gloomily down on the table, all three knowing and sympathizing with the feelings of a British officer while listening to such a detail. The expression of his countenance they could not see; but the finely-cut ear, appearing from beneath the curls of his hair, glowed like fire before the speaker finished.