"In the middle of November, with an interpreter and four attendants, and Christopher Gist as a guide, he left Will's Creek, and following the Indian trace through forest solitudes, gloomy with the fallen leaves, and solemn sadness of late autumn, across mountains, rocky ravines, and streams, through sleet and snows, he rode in nine days to the fork of the Ohio. How lonely was the spot, where, so long unheeded of men, the rapid Allegheny met nearly at right angles 'the deep and still' water of the Monongahela! At once Washington foresaw the destiny of the place. 'I spent some time,' said he, 'in viewing the rivers;' 'the land in the Fork has the absolute command of both.' 'The flat, well-timbered land all around the point lies very convenient for building.' After creating in imagination a fortress and a city, he and his party swam their horses across the Allegheny, and wrapt their blankets around them for the night, on its northwest bank. From the Fork the chief of the Delawares conducted Washington through rich alluvial fields to the pleasing valley at Logstown. There deserters from Louisiana discoursed of the route from New Orleans to Quebec, by way of the Wabash and the Maumee, and of a detachment from the lower province on its way to meet the French troops from Lake Erie, while Washington held close colloquy with the half-king; the one anxious to gain the west as a part of the territory of the ancient dominion, the other to preserve it for the Red Men. 'We are brothers,' said the half-king in council; 'we are one people; I will send back the French speech-belt, and will make the Shawnees and the Delawares do the same.' On the night of the twenty-ninth of November, the council-fire was kindled an aged orator was selected to address the French the speech which he was to deliver was debated and rehearsed; it was agreed that, unless the French would heed this third warning to quit the land, the Delawares also would be their enemies; and a very large string of black and white wampun was sent to the Six Nations as a prayer for aid. After these preparations, the party of Washington, attended by the half-king, and envoys of the Delawares, moved onwards to the post of the French at Venango. The officers there avowed the purpose of taking possession of the Ohio; and they mingled the praises of La Salle with boasts of their forts at Le Bœuf and Erie, at Niagara, Toronto, and Frontenac. 'The English,' said they, 'can raise two men to our one; but they are too dilatory to prevent any enterprise of ours.' The Delawares were intimidated or debauched; but the half-king clung to Washington like a brother, and delivered up his belt as he had promised. The rains of December had swollen the creeks. The messengers could pass them only by felling trees for bridges. Thus they proceeded, now killing a buck and now a bear, delayed by excessive rains and snows, by mire and swamps, while Washington's quick eye discerned all the richness of the meadows. At Waterford, the limit of his journey, he found Fort Le Bœuf defended by cannon. Around it stood the barracks of the soldiers, rude log-cabins, roofed with bark. Fifty birch-bark canoes, and one hundred seventy boats of pine, were already prepared for the descent of the river, and materials were collected for building more. The Commander, Gardeur de St. Pierre, an officer of integrity and experience, and, for his dauntless courage, both feared and beloved by the Red Men, refused to discuss questions of right. 'I am here,' said he, 'by the orders of my general, to which I shall conform with exactness and resolution.' And he avowed his purpose of seizing every Englishman within the Ohio Valley. France was resolved on possessing the great territory which her missionaries and travellers had revealed to the world. Breaking away from courtesies, Washington hastened homewards to Virginia. The rapid current of French Creek dashed his party against rocks; in shallow places they waded, the water congealing on their clothes; where the ice had lodged in the bend of the rivers, they carried their canoe across the neck. At Venango, they found their horses, but so weak, the travellers went still on foot, heedless of the storm. The cold increased very fast; the paths grew 'worse by a deep snow continually freezing.' Impatient to get back with his despatches, the young envoy, wrapping himself in an Indian dress, with gun in hand and pack on his back, the day after Christmas quitted the usual path, and, with Gist for his sole companion, by aid of the compass, steered the nearest way across the country for the Fork. An Indian, who had lain in wait for him, fired at him from not fifteen steps' distance, but, missing him, became his prisoner. 'I would have killed him,' wrote Gist, 'but Washington forbade.' Dismissing their captive at night, they walked about half a mile, then kindled a fire, fixed their course by the compass, and continued travelling all night, and all the next day, till quite dark. Not till then did the weary wanderers 'think themselves safe enough to sleep,' and they encamped, with no shelter but the leafless forest-tree. On reaching the Allegheny, with one poor hatchet and a whole day's work, a raft was constructed and launched. But before they were half over the river, they were caught in the running ice, expecting every moment to be crushed, unable to reach either shore. Putting out the setting-pole to stop the raft, Washington was jerked into the deep water, and saved himself only by grasping at the raft-logs. They were obliged to make for an island. There lay Washington, imprisoned by the elements; but the late December night was intensely cold, and in the morning he found the river frozen. Not till he reached Gist's settlement, in January, 1754, were his toils lightened."
Washington reported the state of affairs on the Lakes,—and active measures were consequently adopted. Of the rapid and brilliant development of his military genius, we are not now to trace the progress; but it is scarcely possible to read without a shudder of "the hair-breadth 'scapes" of the young man whose life was of such inestimable consequence to his country. Thus, in the battle fought by Braddock—to whom Washington acted as aide-de-camp—against the French and Indians in 1755, he appeared to others as well as to himself to bear a charmed life. In this action, says Mr. Bancroft,—
"Of eighty-six officers, twenty-six were killed—among them, Sir Peter Halket,—and thirty-seven were wounded, including Gage and other field officers. Of the men, one half were killed or wounded. Braddock braved every danger. His secretary was shot dead; both his English aids were disabled early in the engagement, leaving the American alone to distribute his orders. 'I expected every moment,' said one whose eye was on Washington, 'to see him fall.' Nothing but the superintending care of Providence could have saved him. An Indian chief—I suppose a Shawnee—singled him out with his rifle, and bade others of his warriors do the same. Two horses were killed under him; four balls penetrated his coat. 'Some potent Manitou guards his life,' exclaimed the savage. 'Death,' wrote Washington, 'was levelling my companions on every side of me, but, by the all-powerful dispensations of Providence, I have been protected.' 'To the public,' said Davis, a learned divine, in the following month, 'I point out that heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has preserved in so signal a manner for some important service to his country.' 'Who is Mr. Washington?' asked Lord Halifax, a few months later. 'I know nothing of him,' he added, 'but that they say he behaved in Braddock's action as bravely as if he really loved the whistling of bullets.'"
Thus opened that career of glory, moderation, and success—thus, at the period of nascent manhood were exhibited the marking traits of that serene and devoted character—which have placed the name of Washington on the noblest and loftiest pedestal in the Temple of Fame.
Leaving for a while the only figure in that scene of miserable and savage warfare on which the mind can dwell with any degree of trust and satisfaction, we will move to the north-east of the English settlements, and follow the story of the unhappy people of Acadia. Mr. Bancroft has drawn a touching picture of the homely virtues and obscure happiness of this rural population before the interference of the British officers changed their joy into wailing, and endowed their simple annals with a dark and tragic interest:—
"After repeated conquests and restorations, the treaty of Utrecht conceded Acadia, or Nova Scotia, to Great Britain. Yet the name of Annapolis, the presence of a feeble English garrison, and the emigration of hardly five or six English families, were nearly all that marked the supremacy of England. The old inhabitants remained on the soil which they had subdued, hardly conscious that they had changed their sovereign. They still loved the language and the usages of their forefathers, and their religion was graven upon their souls. They promised submission to England; but such was the love with which France had inspired them, they would not fight against its standard or renounce its name. Though conquered they were French neutrals. For nearly forty years from the peace of Utrecht they had been forgotten or neglected, and had prospered in their seclusion. No tax-gatherer counted their folds, no magistrate dwelt in their hamlets. The parish priests made their records and regulated their successions. Their little disputes were settled among themselves, with scarcely an instance of an appeal to English authority at Annapolis. The pastures were covered with their herds and flocks; and dikes, raised by extraordinary efforts of social industry, shut out the rivers and the tide from alluvial marshes of exuberant fertility. The meadows, thus reclaimed, were covered by richest grasses, or fields of wheat, that yielded fifty and thirty fold at the harvest. Their houses were built in clusters, neatly constructed and comfortably furnished, and around them all kinds of domestic fowls abounded. With the spinning-wheel and the loom, their women made, of flax from their own fields, of fleeces from their own flock, coarse, but sufficient clothing. The few foreign luxuries that were coveted could be obtained from Annapolis or Louisburgh, in return for furs, or wheat, or cattle. Thus were the Acadians happy in their neutrality and in the abundance which they drew from their native land. They formed, as it were, one great family. Their morals were of unaffected purity. Love was sanctified and calmed by the universal custom of early marriages. The neighbors of the community would assist the new couple to raise their cottage, while the wilderness offered land. Their numbers increased, and the colony, which had begun only as the trading station of a company, with a monopoly of the fur trade, counted, perhaps, sixteen or seventeen thousand inhabitants."
The transfer of this colony from French to English rule could not fail to be productive of some untoward results. The native priests feared the introduction among them of heretical opinions:—the British officers treated the people with insolent contempt. "Their papers and records" says our historian, "were taken from them" by their new masters:—
"Was their property demanded for the public service? 'they were not to be bargained with for the payment.' The order may still be read on the Council records at Halifax. They must comply, it was written, without making any terms, 'immediately,' or 'the next courier would bring an order for military execution upon the delinquents.' And when they delayed in fetching firewood for their oppressors, it was told them from the governor, 'If they do not do it in proper time, the soldiers shall absolutely take their houses for fuel.' The unoffending sufferers submitted meekly to the tyranny. Under pretence of fearing that they might rise in behalf of France, or seek shelter in Canada, or convey provisions to the French garrisons, they were ordered to surrender their boats and their firearms; and, conscious of innocence, they gave up their barges and their muskets, leaving themselves without the means of flight, and defenceless. Further orders were afterwards given to the English officers, if the Acadians behaved amiss to punish them at discretion; if the troops were annoyed, to inflict vengeance on the nearest, whether the guilty one or not,—'taking an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'"
There is no reason to believe that these atrocious orders were not executed in the spirit in which they had been conceived. But worse remained to come:—
"The Acadians cowered before their masters, hoping forbearance; willing to take an oath of fealty to England; in their single-mindedness and sincerity, refusing to pledge themselves to bear arms against France. The English were masters of the sea, were undisputed lords of the country, and could exercise clemency without apprehension. Not a whisper gave a warning of their purpose till it was ripe for execution. But it had been 'determined upon' after the ancient device of Oriental despotism, that the French inhabitants of Acadia should be carried away into captivity to other parts of the British dominions. * * France remembered the descendants of her sons in the hour of their affliction, and asked that they might have time to remove from the peninsula with their effects, leaving their lands to the English; but the answer of the British Minister claimed them as useful subjects, and refused them the liberty of transmigration. The inhabitants of Minas and the adjacent country pleaded with the British officers for the restitution of their boats and their guns, promising fidelity, if they could but retain their liberties, and declaring that not the want of arms, but their conscience, should engage them not to revolt. 'The memorial,' said Lawrence in Council, 'is highly arrogant, insidious and insulting.' The memorialists, at his summons, came submissively to Halifax. 'You want your canoes for carrying provisions to the enemy,' said he to them, though he knew no enemy was left in their vicinity. 'Guns are no part of your goods,' he continued, 'as by the laws of England all Roman Catholics are restrained from having arms, and are subject to penalties if arms are found in their houses. It is not the language of British subjects to talk of terms with the Crown, or capitulate about their fidelity and allegiance. What excuse can you make for your presumption in treating this government with such indignity as to expound to them the nature of fidelity? Manifest your obedience by immediately taking the oaths of allegiance in the common form before the Council.' The deputies replied that they would do as the generality of the inhabitants should determine; and they merely entreated leave to return home and consult the body of their people. The next day, the unhappy men, foreseeing the sorrows that menaced them, offered to swear allegiance unconditionally."