whom Washington thought so well. This man was sent, and, after a long absence, returned, with the terms of capitulation suggested by Villiers, the French commander. Vanbraam himself was able to make out the words only because he had heard the paper read by the French officer, and Stephen says, that as there was no opportunity to make a written translation, they were "obliged to take the sense of them from his mouth," implying that perhaps he gave mere summaries of some clauses. The English objected to certain terms. The French were willing to change them, an agreement was reached, and the articles signed about midnight. The English marched out in the early morning, with the honors of war, their drums beating, carrying one of their swivels, and with the promise of protection from the Indians, having on their part promised to return to Fort Duquesne the prisoners taken in the preceding scrimmage. They left two hostages, of whom Vanbraam was one. Twelve Virginians remained on the field, dead, and forty-three wounded were carried away. Mackaye's losses are not known. The French commander reported his killed and wounded as twenty. The total number of the French forces is unknown, but was probably twice as large as the English. The cattle and horses of the defeated had all been killed, and as they had to carry the wounded on their backs they

E

were compelled to leave most of the baggage. Worn out with fatigue they soon encamped, to wait for wagons. The Indians plundered them, threatened an attack, knocked to pieces their medicine chest, and murdered and scalped two of the wounded. The officers with difficulty prevented a panic. They finally left the wounded with a guard, and marched the fifty-two miles across the Alleghanies to Will's Creek.

The articles signed under such confusing conditions led to some misapprehensions, the most notable of which concerned article 7, in which the English promised to return the prisoners taken "dans l'assassinat du Sieur de Jumonville." Villiers, in his report to his government, lays special stress on having compelled the English to confess to the "assassination," but his report is throughout ludicrously inaccurate, and the testimony is overwhelming that Vanbraam never used the word " assassination," but spoke of the death or loss of Jumonville. Washington, Mackaye, and Stephen agree in this. Vanbraam was charged with treachery, but Washington believed in his innocence, which, indeed, there is not the smallest reason to doubt, and befriended him after his return from captivity. The only real disgrace involved was Dinwiddie's refusal to live up to this seventh clause, retaining his prisoners on a pretext. In allusion to one clause, which later also

caused allegations of bad faith, because it was not clearly understood, or because it was misrepresented by the French, Horace Walpole wrote: "The French have tied up the hands of an excellent fanfaron, a Major Washington, whom they took and engaged not to serve for a year." Washington and all the officers, except two, Vanbraam, on account of his blunder, and the Major of the regiment, Muse, who was charged with cowardice, received a vote of thanks from the house of Burgesses. One of the hostages, Captain Stobo, a Scotchman, was held for years at Quebec. One notable spring he escaped, and, joining a British army, pointed out to General Wolfe a path up a cliff, in a little cove called Anse de Foulon.

Washington's friend, the Half-King, died during the autumn following the skirmish which began so long a struggle, not, however, without having in his pique given to an interpreter some sentences in which possibly some truth is mixed with much picturesque foolishness: that Washington "lay at one place from one full moon to the other and made no fortifications at all, but that little thing upon the Meadow, where he thought the French would come up to him in open field; that had he taken the Half-King's advice and made such fortifications as the Half-King advised him to make he would certainly have beat the French off; that

the French had acted as great cowards, and the English as fools in that engagement; that he (the Half-King) had carried off his wife and children; so did other Indians before the battle begun, because Colonel Washington would never listen to them, but was always driving them on to fight by his directions."

CHAPTER IV

BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT

"It is not in Indian wars that heroes are celebrated, but it is there they are formed.”. FISHER AMES.

GOVERNOR DINWIDDIE, full of zeal and military ignorance, was eager for the impossible. Early in August Washington received a letter from him, stating that the Council, considering the present state of the English forces and the possibility that the French would be reënforced in the spring, had determined that their forces should march immediately over the Alleghany Mountains, and either take Fort Duquesne or build a fort in a suitable place. Washington was ordered to fill his regiment up to three hundred men and then march to Will's Creek. His comment (not made in these words to the governor, however), was that to repair to Will's Creek with the regiment, under the present circumstances, was as impracticable as it would be to take Fort Duquesne, which, with their present means, would be impossible. He pointed out to his friend, William Fairfax, that "considering the present state of our forces" ought to have led to exactly the opposite conclusion