The French made use of the years that intervened between the peace of 1748 and the outbreak of hostilities in 1754 to draw a line of posts along the Ohio and near to the Alleghany Mountains, intending to confine the English to the country east of the Alleghanies, and to secure to themselves the whole of the great interior valley. This was especially exasperating to Virginia, which claimed the western country. George Washington, then a young man of twenty-one, who had already spent much time on the frontier as a surveyor, was sent into the wilderness by the Governor of Virginia as an ambassador to urge the French to depart peaceably. This errand the athletic and cool-headed young man accomplished, in spite of great hardships and dangers.

In the next year, 1754, Washington was sent as a major at the head of some troops to dislodge the French, who had built a post at the head of the Ohio, where Pittsburg now stands. This they called Fort Duquesne [du-ken]. Washington found the French too strong for his force, but, by surprising and defeating a skulking party of them, he brought on the war, which the French wished to postpone. Washington was himself afterward attacked by a superior force, and compelled to capitulate and retire from the disputed ground.

In 1755 General Braddock, an English officer, marched from Virginia in command of an army of English regulars and colonial militia, to drive the French from Fort Duquesne. Braddock was brave and honest, but harsh and brutal in manners. He could not understand the nature of a war in the woods. Like other English officers of the time, he despised the American militia and their disorganized way of fighting.

When only eight miles from Fort Duquesne, the French and American Indians attacked Braddock's army. The scarlet coats and solid ranks were a good target, and the soldiers were mowed down by the deadly fire that came from trees and gullies where no enemy was to be seen. The British soldiers, though brave enough, were unused to such warfare, and unable to do anything to repel the unseen foe. After standing huddled together for three hours, they broke and fled. The Virginians, whom Braddock had despised, had stood their ground for a while, fighting behind trees like the American Indians; but Braddock, esteeming this cowardly, ordered them to "come out in the open field like Englishmen," and even struck some of them with the back of his sword.

General Braddock exposed himself fearlessly. He had four horses killed under him, and was on the fifth when he was mortally wounded. George Washington, who was the only officer on Braddock's staff not killed or wounded, behaved with admirable courage. He had two horses shot under him, and four bullets pierced his clothes. Nearly all the officers of Braddock's army were killed or wounded, and the soldiers who escaped the slaughter fled back to Fort Cumberland in a wild panic.

In the same summer with Braddock's defeat came the removal of the Acadians. Acadia was the name of the region now included in the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. It had been settled by the French about one hundred years when the English conquered it in 1710, during Queen Anne's War. The people were peasants who continued to speak French and to take sides secretly with their own nation in every struggle between the two countries, though they had lived forty-five years under English rule. In this war the hard resolution was taken to scatter the Acadians through the various English colonies. They were seized and put on board vessels and sent away; their houses and barns were burned, and their lands confiscated. Some of them got to Louisiana, some to Canada, and some, after great hardships, made their way back to Acadia; others were scattered in various places, and their sufferings have excited pity even to our own times, and have been made the subject of Longfellow's poem of "Evangeline."

Almost the whole of this year's operations of the British and colonial troops ended in failure. Sir William Johnson was sent to capture Crown Point, a French fort on Lake Champlain. His raw forces succeeded in beating off the French in the battle of Lake George, but Johnson, who was no soldier, did not even attempt to go farther, and Crown Point was not attacked. General Shirley set out to capture the French fort at Niagara, but he was outgeneraled by the French, and did not reach it.

The statesmen who governed in England at this time were very incompetent. The colonies were divided by factions and jealousies, and the war in America was carried on with half-heartedness and stupidity.

Lord Loudon [low'-den] was sent, in 1756, to command the troops in America. He laid siege to Louisbourg in 1757, but failed to take it. For this movement he drew away many of the troops that had protected the New York frontier. Aware of this, the French, under Montcalm [mont-cahm], besieged and captured Fort William Henry, at the south end of Lake George. By the terms of capitulation, the colonial troops were to be allowed to return home, but after they had surrendered the fort the American Indian allies of the French fell on them and killed a great many. Others they seized and carried off.



WASHINGTON'S EMBASSY

The French officers were very much impressed by Washington, and showed him many courtesies, though they tried to persuade his allied American Indians to leave him. On his return a French Indian tried to kill him by firing at him, and then pretending that his gun had gone off accidentally. The American Indian was caught, and Washington's companion. Gist, would have killed him, but Washington let him go. But he and Gist were obliged to travel on foot all night and all the next day to avoid pursuit. They found the Alleghany River filled with floating ice. They tried to cross on a raft, but the ice caught the pole with which Washington was pushing and threw him into the river. He caught hold of the raft and drew himself out. They were obliged to pass the night on an island, and Gist was badly frost-bitten. Washington got back to Williamsburg, the capital of Virginia, in January, and the story of his adventures and of the French encroachments agitated the Virginians.