1753.

CHAPTER V.

FRANKLIN PLANS UNION FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. PELHAM'S ADMINISTRATION CONTINUED.

1753-1754.

FROM Virginia, the Ohio company, in 1753, opened a road by Will's Creek into the western valley; and Gist established a plantation near the Youghiogeny, just beyond Laurel Hill. Eleven families settled in his vicinity; a town and fort were marked out on Shurtee's Creek, but the British government left the feeble company exposed to the red men and to the French.

The young men of the Six Nations had been hunting near the Rapids of the St. Lawrence. Suddenly they beheld a large body of French and Indians, equipped for war, marching towards Ontario; and their two fleetest runners hurried through the forest, as messengers to the grand council at Onondaga. In eight-and-forty hours the decision. of the council was borne by fresh posts to the nearest English station; and on the nineteenth of April, at midnight, the two Indians from Canajoharie, escorted by Mohawk warriors, that filled the air with their whoops and halloos, presented to Johnson the belt summoning the English to protect the Ohio Indians and the Miamis. In May, more than thirty canoes were counted as they passed Oswego; part of an army going to "the Beautiful River" of the French. The Six Nations foamed with eagerness to take up the hatchet; for, said they, "Ohio is ours.'

On the report that a body of twelve hundred men had been detached from Montreal, by the brave Duquesne, the successor of La Jonquière, to occupy the Ohio valley, the Indians on the banks of that river, - promiscuous bands of

Delawares, Shawnees, and Mingoes, or emigrant Iroquois,— after a council at Logstown, resolved to protest against the invasion. Their envoy met the French, in April, at Niagara, and gave them the first warning to turn back.

As the message sent from the council-fires of the tribes was unheeded, Tanacharisson, the half-king, repaired to them at the newly discovered harbor of Erie, and, undismayed by a rude reception, delivered his speech: "Fathers! you are disturbers in this land, by taking it away unknown to us and by force. This is our land, and not yours. Fathers! both you and the English are white; we live in a country between. Therefore the land belongs to neither the one nor the other of you; but the Great Being above allowed it to be a dwelling-place for us: so, fathers, I desire you to withdraw, as I have done our brothers, the English ;" and he gave the belt of wampum.

"Child," replied the French officer, "you talk foolishly; you say this land belongs to you; but not so much of it as the black of your nail is yours. It is my land; and I will have it, let who will stand up against it;" and he threw back the wampum. His words dismayed the half-king.

In September, the mightiest men of the Mingo clan, of the Delawares, the Shawnees, the Wyandots, and the Miamis, met Franklin, of Pennsylvania, and his two colleagues, at Carlisle. They wished neither French nor English to settle in their country; if the English would lend aid, they would repel the French. The calm statesman distributed presents to all, but especially gifts of condolence to the tribe that dwelt at Picqua; and, returning, he made known that the French had established posts at Erie, Waterford, and Venango, and were preparing to occupy the banks of the Monongahela.

Sanctioned by orders from the king, Dinwiddie, of Virginia, resolved to send "a person of distinction to the commander of the French forces on the Ohio River, to know his reasons for invading the British dominions, while a solid peace subsisted." The envoy whom he selected was George Washington. The young man, then just twenty-one, familiar with the wilderness, and as heroic as La Salle, entered

with alacrity on the perilous winter's journey from Williamsburg to the streams of Lake Erie.

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 gloomy solitudes, crossing 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 Alleghany met nearly at right angles "the deep and still" Monongahela! "I spent some time," said Washington, "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 conven

1755.

Nov. 23.

ient for building." After creating in imagination a fortress and a city, he and his party swam their horses across the Alleghany, and wrapt their blankets around them for the night, on its north-west bank.

From the fork, the chief of the Delawares conducted Washington through rich alluvial fields to the valley at Logstown. There deserters from Louisiana discoursed of the route from New Orleans to Quebec, along, 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 speechbelt, 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 would be their enemies; and a very large string of black and white wampum was sent to the Six Nations as a prayer for aid.

After these preparations, the party of Washington, at

tended by the half-king and envoys of the Delawares, moved onwards to 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 and seventy boats of pine, were already prepared for the descent of the river, and materials were collected for building more. The commander, Gardeur de Saint-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. 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 on the bend of the rivers, they carried their canoe across the neck. At Venango, they found their horses, but so weak that they went still on foot, heedless of the storm. The cold increased very fast; the paths grew worse by a deep

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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, steered by the compass 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 Alleghany, 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. 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.

1754.

Washington's report was followed by immediate activity. An officer appointed by Dinwiddie, having enlisted about seventy men west of the mountains, to the great joy of the Indians, began building a fort at the mouth of the Monongahela, on ground which had already been occupied by the Ohio company. A French officer, appearing at Logstown, threatened death to the subordinates of the Six Nations, and to their English allies; and the speaker of the Indians, who were all in high spirits, retorted with words of defiance. The Virginia house of burgesses, relying on the king to protect the boundary of his dominions, applied to that purpose a loan of ten thousand pounds, taking care to place the disbursement of the money under the superintendence of their own committee. Washington, who for a time had been