clad mountains, through thick forests, and across brimming streams filled with floating cakes of ice. They found the French at a stout log stockade called Fort le Boeuf, a hundred and twenty miles north of the Forks. The commandant curtly told Washington that he would not leave, and the latter hastened home with this defiant message.

132. Washington defeated. Virginia promptly replied by sending some men to build the proposed fort at the Forks, and soon after

this Washington followed with a hundred and fifty militiamen to form a garrison for this stronghold. But before his arrival the French drove away the fortbuilders, and, completing the work for themselves, called it Fort Duquesne; they also attacked Washington when he had

Painting by A. G. Heaton, Union League, Philadelphia THE FIRST MISSION OF WASHINGTON

The scene is the interior of Fort le Bœuf. Washington is about to return with the French commander's reply to the English governor of Virginia. His companions are a frontiersman as guide, and a Dutch soldier as interpreter

almost reached the Forks, and defeated him at Fort Necessity, near a place in the mountains called Great Meadows. This battle was the opening of the French and Indian War.

133. The Albany plan of union. At this time, there were only 85,000 people in New France, and sixteen times this number in the English colonies. The despotic officers of the French could move them quickly from place to place, without asking their consent. But the English colonies were jealous of each other, and colonists and governors were constantly quarreling; so that it was seldom possible to

get the people to agree on any action against the common

enemy.

In order to remedy this unfortunate condition of affairs, a convention of delegates from the several colonies was held at Albany in June and July, 1754. Prominent among the members from Pennsylvania was Benjamin Franklin,1 editor of the Pennsylvania Gazette. In this newspaper he had printed a rudely drawn picture of a snake, cut into pieces,2 to each piece being given the name of a colony; beneath this was the significant motto, "Unite or die." A plan of union which he drew up was adopted by the convention. But the colonists rejected it, as not being sufficiently democratic; and the King's approval could not be obtained, because he thought the plan merely a " stepping-stone to the independence of the colonies." However, it set wise men to thinking and talking of the benefits of such a union, and prepared them for the one that was

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

1 Franklin was born in Boston in 1706. As a youth he read every book he could buy or borrow, and at an early age began to write newspaper articles and ballads. When seventeen years old he arrived in Philadelphia, seeking employment as a printer, with only a dollar in his pocket. Six years later he owned his own newspaper and printing-office and had become one of the leading citizens of Pennsylvania. He was greatly interested in scientific studies, and invented many useful articles. His experiments with a kite showed that lightning is an electrical discharge; this discovery and his writings, chief among the latter being Poor Richard's Almanac, filled with wise and witty sayings, made him as well known in Europe as in America. Franklin was conspicuous in colonial politics, frequently went to Europe as business agent for the colonies, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and in 1783 helped negotiate at Paris our treaty of peace with England. His simple dress and manners, keen wit as both writer and speaker, strong common sense, and scientific fame, made him extremely popular in Paris, where scores of artists asked him to sit for busts, portraits, and medals. When he died at Philadelphia, in 1790, he was one of the most famous and best beloved of Americans.

2 The popular belief was, that if the parts of a snake that had been cut to pieces were brought together they would unite; otherwise the snake would die.

finally formed for the carrying on of the Revolutionary War.

134. Braddock's defeat. The English King, George II, saw that conditions were now getting serious in America, and in 1755 sent over General Edward Braddock, a brave and skillful but very stubborn officer, to help the colonists capture the Ohio Valley from the French. He had with him several hundred well-trained soldiers, and was also accompanied into the wilderness by the Virginia troops, headed by Washington, and a few friendly Indians. Washington advised Braddock to order his soldiers to seek shelter behind trees, when attacked by the savages, just as the Virginians had learned to do. But Braddock thought it disgraceful for regular soldiers to fight under cover. The expedition was suddenly attacked by a small party of French and Indians, in a bushy ravine not far from Fort Duquesne. Braddock's men, being forbidden by the general to conceal themselves, huddled in frightened masses and were an easy target for the foe, secreted in the forest, who slaughtered them as though they were a flock of sheep. Few of the regulars escaped, and they owed their lives to the coolness and bravery of Washington and his militiamen. Four bullets passed through Washington's clothes and two horses were shot under him, yet he was everywhere in the fight, and was the hero of the day.1

135. Removal of the Acadians. Another English expedition was sent during the same year to Nova Scotia, or Acadia. This province, formerly belonging to France, was now owned by England; but the French farmers, who made up the greater part of the population, were rebellious and made a great deal of trouble for English officials. The Acadians were easily quieted, and seven thousand of them were exiled to various settlements along the coast, all the way from Massachusetts to Georgia. 2

1 Daniel Boone, afterwards a famous hunter and the explorer of Kentucky, was driving the horses of a baggage wagon; but he cut the traces that held his animals and rode off in safety.

2 Longfellow's beautiful poem, Evangeline, is based on this incident; but the

136. Guarding the Western frontier. The ease with which Braddock had been defeated made the French and their Indian allies believe that if diligent they might drive the English entirely out of the Western country. Their war parties therefore began a series of fierce attacks on the settlements along the mountainous western borders of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia - a frontier line of three hundred and fifty miles. Hundreds of backwoodsmen and their wives and children were murdered, or taken to the Indian villages as prisoners to be tortured; others were driven back to the east of the mountains, their houses burned, and their cattle killed. Fom 1755 to the end of the war the story of the Western frontiers is one long chapter of misery.

The man who undertook the difficult and dangerous defense of this back door of the colonies, and prevented the savage enemy from forcing their way into the small settlements east of the mountains, was George Washington, who was then but twenty-four years of age. He was, however, considered the most skillful Indian fighter of his time, and was greatly beloved by his rude but brave militiamen, who were now fifteen hundred in number. Although without uniforms, nearly all of them wore fringed buckskin suits, and coarse felt hats or coonskin caps, with the tails hanging behind; they carried long, homemade flintlock rifles, and from their belts hung powderhorn, scalping-knife, and tomahawk. Many were the valiant deeds performed by Washington and his followers, as they hurled back the enemy from the rear of the settlements. But for them the war might have had a quite different ending.1

137. William Pitt. During 1756 and 1757 the English

poem must not be regarded as strictly true to history. France had in 1713 ceded Acadia to the English, yet for forty years its people stubbornly refused to take the oath of allegiance to England; they aided her enemy, and many served in the French army. English officers decided that their removal was a necessary

war measure.

1 Under Washington's direction the border men erected numerous log forts, which were garrisoned by the neighboring settlers. Washington and his rudely clothed riflemen marched quickly hither and thither, as their services were needed by these local garrisons.

generals in America were almost always unsuccessful in their expeditions, and it began to look as though the French, few in number but plucky fighters, might win after all. But in 1758 affairs began to mend, chiefly because of the energy of one great-hearted, honest, and patriotic man, William Pitt, afterwards Lord Chatham, who had recently become the chief adviser of the English Government. He selected the best military men he could get, and aroused his fellow countrymen to make a last and desperate attempt to defeat France, the ancient enemy of the kingdom. New and fresh troops, well officered and equipped, soon began to arrive in America from the mother country; and naval vessels patrolled the Canadian coasts, to prevent New France from receiving supplies from Europe.

WILLIAM PITT

During the year 1758 Fort Duquesne was captured by the persistent English and renamed Fort Pitt (afterwards it was called Pittsburg); this opened to them the Ohio Valley, and gave them an easy pathway into the Western country. In the same year, after a brilliant siege, the great fortress of Louisburg once more fell a prize to the English, who never again let it slip out of their grasp.

In the summer of 1759 Fort Niagara, which guarded the Great Lakes, also fell to the English; so likewise did the forts of Crown Point and Ticonderoga thus giving to them, at last, control of the long-coveted route to Canada, by way of the Hudson River and Lake Champlain.

138. The fall of Quebec. Every obstacle lying in the path of an English attack on Montreal and Quebec, the two principal towns of New France, had now been removed.

An expedition against Quebec was at once organized,