products; and the voice of Massachusetts was un1755. heeded, when, in November, it began to be thoroughly alarmed, and instructed its agent "to oppose every thing that should have the remotest tendency to raise a revenue in the plantations." Everybody in parlia ment seemed in favor of an American revenue that should come under the direction of the government in England. Those who once promised opposition to the measure resolved rather to sustain it, and the next winter was to introduce the new policy.

The civilized world was just beginning to give due attention to the colonies. Hutcheson, the able Irish writer on ethics, who, without the power of thoroughly reforming the theory of morals, knew that it needed a reform, and was certain that truth and right have a foundation within us, though, swayed by the material philosophy of his times, he sought that foundation not in pure reason, but in a moral sense,saw no wrong in the coming independence of America. “When,” he inquired, "have colonies a right to be released from the dominion of the parent state?" And this year his opinion saw the light: "Whenever they are so increased in numbers and strength as to be sufficient by themselves for all the good ends of a political union."

CHAPTER VIII.

ENGLAND AND FRANCE CONTEND FOR THE OHIO VALLEY AND FOR ACADIA. NEWCASTLE'S ADMINISTRATION CON

TINUED.

1755.

1755,

ANARCHY lay at the heart of the institutions of Europe; the germ of political life was struggling for its development in the people of America. While doubt was preparing the work of destruction in the Old World, faith in truth and the formative power of order were organizing the energies of the New. As yet America refused union, not from unwillingness to devote life and fortune for the commonwealth, but from the resolve never to place its concentrated strength under an authority independent of itself.

The events of the summer strengthened the purpose, but delayed the period, of taxation by parliament. Between England and France peace existed under ratified treaties; it was proposed not to invade Canada, but only to repel encroachments on the frontier from the Ohio to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. For this end, four expeditions were concerted by Braddock at Alexandria. Lawrence, the licutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, was to reduce that province according to the English interpretation of its boundaries; Johnson, from his long acquaintance with the Six Nations, was selected to enroll Mohawk warriors in British pay, and to conduct an army of provincial militia and Indians against Crown Point; Shirley proposed to win laurels by driving the French from Niagara; while the commander in chief himself was to recover the Ohio valley and the north-west. Soon after Braddock sailed from Europe, the French sent re-enforcements for Canada, under the veteran Dieskau. Boscawen, with English ships, pursued them, though Eng

land had avowed only the intention to resist encroachments on her territory; and when the French ambassador at London expressed some uneasiness, he was assured that the English would not begin. At six o'clock on the evening 1755. of the seventh of June, the "Alcide," the "

Lys,"

and the "Dauphin," that had for several days been separated from their squadron, fell in with the British fleet off Cape Race. Between ten and eleven in the morning of the eighth, the "Alcide," under Hocquart, was within hearing of the “Dunkirk," a vessel of sixty guns, commanded by Howe. "Are we at peace or war?" asked Hocquart. The French affirm that the answer to them was, "Peace! Peace!" till Boscawen gave the signal to engage. Howe, who was as brave as he was taciturn, obeyed the order promptly; and the "Alcide" and "Lys" yielded to superior force. The "Dauphin," being a good sailer, scud safely for Louisburg. Nine more of the French squadron came in sight of the British, but were not intercepted; and, before June was gone, Dieskau and his troops, with De Vaudreuil, who superseded Duquesne as governor of Canada, landed at Quebec. Vaudreuil was a Canadian by birth, had served in Canada, and been governor of Louisiana. The Canadians flocked about him to bid him welcome.

From Williamsburg, Braddock had promised Newcastle to be "beyond the mountains of Alleghany by the end of April;" at Alexandria, in April, he promised the ministry tidings of his successes by an express to be sent in June. At Fredericktown, where he halted for carriages, he said to Franklin "After taking Fort Duquesne, I am to proceed to Niagara, and, having taken that, to Frontenac. Duquesne can hardly detain me above three or four days, and then I see nothing that can obstruct my march to Niagara." "The Indians are dexterous in laying and executing ambuscades," replied Franklin, who called to mind the French invasion of the Chickasaws, and the death of Artaguette and Vincennes. "The savages," answered Braddock, "may be formidable to your raw American militia; upon the king's regulars and disciplined troops, it is impossible they should make any impression." The little army was "unable to move, for

want of horses and carriages;" but Franklin, by his "great influence in Pennsylvania," supplied both, with a "promptitude and probity" which extorted praise from Braddock and unanimous thanks from the assembly of his province. Among the wagoners was Daniel Morgan, famed in village groups as a wrestler; skilful in the use of the musket; who emigrated, as a day-laborer, from New Jersey to Virginia, and husbanded his wages so that he had become the owner of a team; all unconscious of his future greatness. At Will's Creek, which took the name of Cumberland, Washington, in May, joined the expedition as one of the general's aids.

1755.

Seven-and-twenty days passed in the march from Alexandria to Cumberland, where two thousand effective men were assembled; among them, two independent companies from New York, under the command of Horatio Gates. "The American troops," wrote Braddock, "have little courage or good-will; I expect from them almost no military service, though I have employed the best officers to drill them;" and, losing all patience, he insulted the country as void of ability, honor, and integrity. "The general is brave," said his secretary, young Shirley, "and in pecuniary matters honest, but disqualified for the service he is employed in ;" and Washington found him "incapable of arguing without warmth, or giving up any point he had asserted, be it ever so incompatible with reason or common sense."

From Cumberland to the fork of the Ohio the distance is less than one hundred and thirty miles. On the last day of May, five hundred men were sent forward to open the roads, and store provisions at Little Meadows. Sir Peter Halket followed with the first brigade, and June was advancing before the general was in motion with the second. "Braddock is not at all impatient to be scalped," thought men in England. Meantime, Fort Duquesne was receiving re-enforcements. "We shall have more to do," said Washington, "than to go up the hills and come down."

The army moved forward, not through the gorge in the mountain, which was then impassable, but over the hills,

in a slender line, nearly four miles long; exposed to be cut by attacks on its flanks; always in fear of Indian ambuscades. The narrow road was carried with infinite toil across mountains and lofty rocks, over ravines and rivers. As the horses, for want of forage, fed on the wild grasses, and the cattle browsed among the shrubs, they grew weak, and began to give out; the wagons broke in pieces on the rough and miry paths; the regular troops pined under the wilderness hardships.

1755.

On the nineteenth of June, Braddock, by Washington's advice, leaving Dunbar behind with the residue of the army, resolved to push forward with twelve hundred chosen men. "The prospect," says Washington, "conveyed to my mind infinite delight;" and he would not suffer "excessive" illness to detain him from active service. Yet still they stopped to level every molehill, and erect bridges over every creek. On the eighth of July, they arrived at the fork of the Monongahela and Youghiogeny Rivers. The distance to Fort Duquesne was but twelve miles, and the governor of New France gave it up as lost.

Early in the morning of the ninth of July, Braddock set his troops in motion. A little below the Youghiogeny, they forded the Monongahela just below the mouth of Turtle Creek, and marched on the southern bank of that tranquil stream; in perfect military order; brilliant in their dazzling uniform; with burnished arms, but sick at heart, and enfeebled by unwholesome diet. At noon they forded the Monongahela again; and stood between the rivers that form the Ohio, only ten miles distant from the fork. A detachment of three hundred and fifty men, led by Lieutenantcolonel Thomas Gage, and closely attended by a working party of two hundred and fifty, under Saint-Clair, advanced cautiously, with guides and flanking parties, along a path but twelve feet wide, towards the uneven, woody country that was between them and Fort Duquesne. They ascended the hill, till they gained the point, when they turned the ravine. The ground then on their left sloped downwards towards the meadows on the river bank; on their right, it rose, first gradually, then suddenly, to a high ridge. The