ed corn, and a bear-skin, with a rifle, tomahawk, and scalping knife, were their equipage. And in a few weeks after Braddock's defeat, an army of at least fourteen hundred of those blood-thirsty savages were in full march over hills and mountains, to surprise and murder the frontier inhabitants.

WASHINGTON had early foreseen the storm that would one day burst from Fort Duquesne. On his first trip through that country, two years before, he had marked the very spot, and rointed it out as "the key of the western world." But Britain and America, (like the wild ass and her colts, though mule-stubborn in acting, yet snail-slow to act,) let the golden chance escape; till one Du Quesne, a French officer, with some troops, passing along that way in 1754, and struck, as Washington had been, with the situation, immediately built thereon a fort, which he called after his own name. It answered the fatal purposes which Washington had predicted. By means of the bold water courses on which it stood, it greatly favoured the conveyance both of goods and of intelligence. There the French laid up magazines for their Indian allies, and there they hoisted the dread signals of war.

Not having been able to prevail on his country.. men to occupy it before the enemy, Washington's whole ambition now was to take it from them. "Send two thousand men," said he, in numerous importunate letters to the Governor and Legislature, " send two thousand men, and drain the fountain at once the streams will fail of course."

BUT, spite of this advice, the mad policy of a defensive war prevailed in the Virginia Government: and instead of raising 2000 men, they voted to raise about half that number! and then, like hypocrites who make up in lip-service what they lack in good works, they dubbed him Commander in chief of all the troops raised or to be raised in Virginia, with the privilege of naming his own field officers!

THESE vain honours served but to exalt him to a higher sphere of misery-the misery of taking a wider survey of those misfortunes of his country which he could not remedy, and to feel a deeper responsibility for those blunders of others, which he could not cure. He saw Fort Duquesne mustering her murderers, which he had no powers to prevent! He had a frontier of 360 miles to defend, and generally less than 700 men to defend it with! If he kept his troops embodied, the whole country would be left open to the savages. If he broke them down into small parties, they might be destroyed one after another, by a superior force. If he threw them into forts, they were sure to be starved; or derided by the enemy who could easily pass them in the night and surprize, destroy, and murder the inhabitants with impunity. And thoughthus completely crippled by the stupidity or parsimony of the government, and incapacitated from doing any services for his country, yet great services were expected of him, and great blame bestowed for every failure. If no victories were gained over the enen enemy, he would be blamed for inactivity. If the settlers were murdered, he would be accused of neglect and if he pointed out the errors of government, he would be charged as " officious" and " impertinent;" and this while young officers of the worthless sort, mere cork-drawers and songsters at great men's tables, were basely cutting in with a weak old governor's prejudices, to work him out, and to worm themselves into favour and rank.

Bu'r all these vexations and sorrows were but trifles in comparison of others which he was doomed to feel. Seeing no hopes of a force sufficient to attack Fort Duquesne, he formed a chain of garrisons along the frontier; and then, with a flying corps of the most active and daring young men, continued night and day, to scour the country in quest of the enemy's murdering parties. In this bold and dangerous employment, which lasted almost three years, he was often presented with sights of human destruction, sufficient to excite sympathy in hearts of flintiest stone.

On cautiously entering the hapless plantation with his men, they halt and listen awhile but hear no voice of man-see no house, nor sign of habitationall is void and silent. M..rking the buzzards perched on the trees in the corn-fields, they approach, and find, lying by his plough, the half-devoured carcass of a man. The hole in his breast shows that he had been shot, while the deep gashes in the forehead of his dead horses, point out the bursting strokes of the tomahawk. Amidst the ashes of the late dwelling, are seen, white as chalk, the bones of the mother and her children. But sometimes their raw and bloody skeletons, fed on by the hogs, are found in the yards or gardens where they were surprised.

"ONE day"-said he to an intimate; though it was but seldom that he mentioned those things, they gave hiin so much pain-" One day, as we drew near "through the woods, to a dwelling, suddenly we heard the discharge of a gun. Whereupon quickening our pace, and creeping up through the thick bushes to a fence, we saw what we had dreaded"a party of Indians, loaded with plunder, coming out " of a house, which, by the smoke, appeared as if it " were just set on fire. In a moment we gave the " savages a shower of rifle balls, which killed every "man of them but one. He attempted to run off. "It was in vain. Some of our swift-footed hunters " gave chase, and soon overtook and immolated him " with their tomahawks. On rushing into the house, " and putting out the fire, we saw a mournful sight " indeed-a young woman lying on a bed floating "in blood-her forehead cleft with a hatchet-and " on her breast two little children, apparently twins, " and about nine months old, bathing her bosom with "the crimson currents flowing from their deeply "gashed heads! I had often beheld the mangled re" mains of my murdered countrymen; but never be"fore felt what I did on this occasion. To see these poor innocents-these little unoffending an

" gels, just entered upon life, and, instead of fondest " sympathy and tenderness, meeting their hideous " deaths; and from hands of brothers too! filled my "soul with the deepest horror of sin! but at the " same time inspired a most adoring sense of that " religion which announces the Redeemer, who " shall, one day, do away man's malignant passions, " and restore the children of God to primæval love " and bliss. Without this hope, what man of feel" ing but would wish he had never been born!

"On tracing back into the corn-field the steps of "the barbarians, we found a little boy, and beyond " him his father, both weltering in blood. It appear" ed, from the print of his little feet in the furrows, "that the child had been following his father's " plough; and, seeing him shot down, had set off " with all his might, to get to the house to his mo"ther; but was overtaken, and destroyed!

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"AND, indeed, so great was the dread entertained " of the French and Indians, throughout the settle"ments, that it was distressing to call even on those "families who yet survived, but, from sickness or " other causes, had not been able to get away. The poor creatures would run to meet us, like persons " half distracted with joy-and then with looks "blank with terror, would tell that such or such a " neighbour's family, perhaps the very night before, " was murdered!-and that they heard their cries! "-and saw the flames that devoured their houses! "-and also, that they themselves, after saying their " prayers at night, neverlay down to sleep, without " first taking leave of one another, as if they never " expected to meet again in this world. But when "we came to take our leave of these wretched fami"lies, my God! what were our feelings! to see the " deep, silent grief of the men; and the looks of the " poor women and children, as, falling upon their „knees, with piercing screams, and eyes wild with terrer, they seized our hands, or hung to our "clothes intreating us, for God's sake, and for mercey sake, not to leave them o bemorder.

"These things su harassed my heart with grief, that " I solemnly declare to God, if I know myse, I " would gladly offer my own life a sacrifice to the " butchering eneiny, if I could thereby insure the " safety of these iny poor distressed countrymen."

SUCH were the scenes in which Washington was doomed to spend three years of a wretched life, rendered still more wretched by knowing so perfectly as he did, that the rapid charge of two thousand brave fellows upon Fort Duquesne, like the thundering shock of a two-and-forty pounder upon a water-spout, would have instantly dispersed the fatal meteor, and restored the golden hours of peace and safety. But to give Colonel Washington two thousand men seemed to old governor Dinwiddie, like giving the staff out of his own hand, as he elegantly called it: and rather than do that, he would risk the desolation of the western country, by continuing a defensive war, and a mad dependence on a disorderly militia, who would come and go as they pleased-get drunk and sleep when they pleased-whoop and halloo where they pleased-and, in short, serve no other purpose on earth but to disgrace their officers, deceive the settlers, and defraud the public. Indeed so ruinous were these measures of governors Dinwiddie and Loudon, that, in the short space of three years, they completely broke up all the fine young settlements to the westward of Winchester, Fredericktown, and Carlisle, whereby numbers of poor people were butchered! hundreds of rich plantations deserted! myriads of produce lost! and thousands of dollars sunk! and all for the sake of saving the paltry expense of raising in the first instance a force which would in ten weeks have taken Fort Duquesne, and completely broken up that den of thieves and murderers!

Ar length, in 1758, the government of Virginia devolved on general Forbes, who, to the infinite satisfaction of Washington, consented to second bis views