| Washington marches on Fort Duquesne. Death of Jumonville. Surrender of Fort Necessity and retreat of Washington. |
From Wills Creek to Fort Duquesne was a distance of 120 to 140 miles, with two ranges of mountains to be crossed, before half the journey was accomplished, and the Monongahela reached. Making a road over the first range, the main range of the Alleghanies, Washington, about the end of May, reached open ground known as the Great Meadows, having still in front of him the Laurel hills, through which the two branches of the Monongahela find their way to the Ohio. A few miles further on, guided by Indian scouts, he surprised an advance party sent out from Fort Duquesne, and killed their commander, Jumonville. Assassination was the term which the French applied to the death of this officer, claiming that he was the peaceful bearer of a summons to the English to retire from the land; but there is no reason to doubt that Washington was justified in using force, and that the Frenchman was killed in fair fight. Returning to his camp, and entrenching it under the suitable name of Fort Necessity, the English commander awaited a counter attack. Small reinforcements reached him, and he pushed on over the Laurel ridge; but, hearing that the French were advancing in force, fell back again to Fort Necessity. Stronger in numbers, the French, from their base at Fort Duquesne, marched forward under Jumonville's brother, Coulon de Villiers; and, after a nine hours' fight, Fort Necessity surrendered; the English, under the terms of the surrender, retreated across the Alleghanies, and the French returned in triumph to Fort Duquesne. For the time, they were beyond dispute masters of the Ohio valley, and the young Virginian, whose name now stands first in the great history of the United States of America, crawled back over the mountains, defeated and undone.
American history is great as a whole, but the back records of its component parts are full of what is mean and contemptible. We are accustomed, in the chronicles of the English race, to trace the errors of its rulers, and to find them put right by the good sense and strong character of the people; but, if we turn to the provincial annals of the American States, when the fate of the continent seemed to be trembling in the balance, the rulers sent out from home must be credited with patriotism and some measure of foresight, while the peoples were or appeared to be selfish and blind. New England alone stands out in a brighter light, ready to sacrifice money and men in the national cause. With the enemy on their borders, the New Englanders knew what the danger was; further south the Alleghany mountains bounded the horizon of the colonists. State Assemblies squabbled with their Governors, each little province was passively indifferent to or actively jealous of its neighbour, all alike were with good reason suspicious of the mother country; while on the other side the fighting strength of Canada, centralized under a despotic Government, one in aim and sympathy, was menacing and dangerous out of all proportion to the resources of the country or the numbers of its people.
| Movement towards union of the English colonies. |
Yet some attempt had been made at concerted action on the part of the English colonies. It emanated from the Government at home. In September, 1753, the Lords of Trade wrote round to the Governors of the various North American provinces, directing them to invite their respective Legislatures to adopt a uniform policy towards the Indians. In consequence, a conference was held at Albany, at which seven of the colonies were represented—Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. The Commissioners met representatives of the Five Nation Indians, whose hereditary friendship for the English cause was fast turning into hatred and contempt. They pacified the angry Indians to some extent, and renewed the old covenant of friendship, then turned to constitution-making, at the instance of Franklin, one of the Commissioners from Pennsylvania.
| Franklin's scheme. It is not accepted. |
Franklin had a scheme for North American union, comprising a President appointed by the Crown, and a general Council elected by the taxpayers of the colonies, the number of representatives of each colony to be determined by the amount of taxes paid. Plenary powers were to be given to the President and Council, including even power to make war and peace. Had the scheme been carried out, North America would have become one great self-governing colony, in some respects more independent, in others more restricted than the self-governing colonies of Great Britain at the present day. Franklin's proposals, though his fellow commissioners were inclined to approve them, pleased neither the colonies nor the mother country. They were premature. The colonies were too jealous of their local liberties to accept the scheme. The mother country still distrusted the colonies, and dreaded the strength which union would bring. Moreover, the immediate necessity was united action, not constitutional change. The French must first be driven back; and with this object Dinwiddie made an earnest appeal to the ministry in England.
| Troops sent from England and from France. The 'Alcide' and the 'Lys' intercepted by Admiral Boscawen. |
The appeal was not made in vain; two regiments of infantry, the 44th and 48th, now the Essex and Northampton regiments, were ordered to embark for Virginia, and sailed from Cork in January, 1755, with Major-General Braddock in command. The French Government, taking alarm, ordered out 3,000 men under Baron Dieskau, a German serving in the French army; and at the beginning of May, 1755, eighteen French ships sailed from Brest carrying to Canada the troops and their commander, and taking out at the same time a new Governor-General, the Marquis de Vaudreuil. Most of the vessels reached their destination in safety; but two, the Alcide and Lys, were intercepted by the English Admiral Boscawen, off the coast of Newfoundland, were fired into, and compelled to surrender.6 There was still supposed to be peace between Great Britain and France, but the backwoods of America and the waters of the Atlantic echoed to the sounds of war.
6 The Alcide was overpowered by the Dunkirk, commanded by the afterwards famous Admiral Lord Howe.