May he sleep in peace! With sorrow and censure, but not with shame, let his name be registered in the crowded roll of those who have fought and fallen for the rights and honor of England.

The number of killed, wounded, and missing, out of this small army, amounted to 896 men, and sixty-four officers, as appeared by the returns of the different companies after the battle. Some few, indeed, of these ultimately reappeared, but most of the wounded and missing met with a fate far more terrible from their savage enemies than a soldier's death upon the field. Of fifty-four women who had accompanied the troops, only four escaped alive from the dangers and hardships of the campaign. The French, on the other hand, only report the loss of their commander, De Beaujeau, and sixty men in this astonishing victory.

On Braddock's death, Colonel Dunbar fell back with disgraceful haste upon Fort Cumberland; nor did he even there consider himself safe. Despite the entreaties of the governors of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, that he would remain to protect the frontier, he continued his march to Philadelphia, leaving only a small garrison of two Provincial companies at the fort. From Philadelphia the remains of the army, 1600 strong, was shipped for Albany by the order of General Shirley, who had succeeded to the command of the British American forces.

In consequence of this lamentable defeat and the injudicious withdrawal of the remaining British troops, the western borders of Pennsylvania and Virginia were exposed during the ensuing winter to the ruthless cruelties of the victorious

humor and wit (Braddock had the latter), said, 'Braddock, you are a poor dog! here, take my purse; if you kill me, you will be forced to run away, and then you will not have a shilling to support you.' Braddock refused the purse, insisted on the duel, was disarmed, and would not even ask his life. However, with all his brutality, he has lately been governor of Gibraltar, where he made himself adored, and where never any governor was endured before. Adieu! Pray don't let any detachment from Pannoni's1 be sent against us: we should run away."-Walpole's Letters to Sir H. Mann, August 28, 1755.

i Pannoni's coffee-house of the Florentine nobility, not famous for their courage of ate.-Ibid.

savages, and the scarcely less ferocious hostilities of their European allies. The French not only incited the Indians to these aggressions, but rewarded them by purchasing their hapless captives at a high price, and in turn exacted large ransoms for the prisoners' release. Their pretense was to rescue the English from the torture, their real motive gain, and the rendering it more profitable for the savages to hunt their enemies than the wild animals of the forest.

From the presumptuous rashness of Braddock and the misconduct of the 44th and 48th regiments, followed results of a far deeper importance than the loss of a battle and the injury of a remote province. The conviction formerly held by the colonists of the superior prowess of English regulars was seriously shaken, if not destroyed, and the licentious and violent conduct of Dunbar's army to the inhabitants during the retreat excited a wide-spread feeling of hostility. They are more terrible to us than to the enemy," said the discontented : they slighted our officers and scorned our counsel, and yet to our Virginians they owe their escape from utter destruction." Some far-sighted and ambitious men there were, who, through this cloud upon the British

* "The European troops, whose cowardice has thus injured their country, are the same that ran away at Preston Pans. To prevent, however, any unjust national reflections, it must be remarked, that, though they are called Irish regiments, they are not regiments of Irishmen, but regiments on the Irish establishment, consisting of English, Irish, and Scotch, as other regiments do. It is, however, said, that the slaughter among our officers was not made by the enemy; but as they ran several fugitives through the body to intimidate the rest, when they were attempting in vain to rally them, some others, who expected the same fate, discharged their pistols at them, which, though loaded, they could not be brought to level at the French. On the other hand, it is alleged that the defeat is owing more to presumption and want of conduct in the officers than to cowardice in the private men; that a retreat ought to have been resolved upon the moment they found themselves surprised by an ambuscade; and that they were told by the men, when they refused to return to the charge, that if they could see their enemy they would fight him, but that they would not waste their ammunition against trees and bushes, nor stand exposed to invisible assailants, the French and Indian rangers, who are excellent marksmen, and in such a situation would inevitably destroy any number of the best troops in the world."-Gentleman's Magazine, August, 1755.

arms, with hope espied the first faint rays of young America's ascending star.

The second expedition, set on foot by the council at Alexandria, was that under General Shirley: two Provincial regiments* and a detachment of the royal artillery were assembled by his order at Albany, to march against Niagara.† All the young men who had been, during more peaceful times, occupied by the fur trade in the neighboring country, were engaged to man the numerous bateaux for the transport of the troops and stores to Oswego. Part of the force commenced their westward journey in the beginning of July, and the remainder were preparing to follow, when the disastrous news of Braddock's ruin reached the camp. This struck a damp upon the undisciplined Provincial troops, and numbers deserted their colors, while the indispensable bateauxmen‡ nearly all fled to their homes, and resisted alike threats and entreaties for their return. The general, however, still vigorously pushed on, with all the force he could keep together. Great hopes had been formed of the assistance likely to be rendered to the expedition by the powerful confederacy of the Five Nations, but these politic savages showed no inclination to trust to the then doubtful fortunes of the British colonies, and even remonstrated against the transit of their territories by the army, alleging that the

"The American regulars, consisting of Shirley's and Pepperel's regiments, constituted the principal force relied on for the reduction of Niagara.”—Marshall's Life of Washington, vol. i., p. 308.

"The fort of Niagara had been repaired by the French in 1741, in consequence of the apprehension they felt that the trading-house at Oswego, just established by the English at the mouth of the Onondaga River, would deprive them of a profitable trade, and of the command of the Lake Ontario."-Marshall's Life of Washington, vol. i., p. 286. "This fort was in other respects a very important post, for the lakes are so disposed that, without a somewhat hazardous voyage, one can not, any otherwise than by Niagara Fort, pass from the northeast to the southwest of North America for many hundred miles." New Military Dictionary, London, 1760.

‡ “Bateaux are a kind of light, flat-bottomed boats, widest in the middle and pointed at each end, of about fifteen hundred weight burden, and managed by two men, called bateaux-men, with paddles and setting poles, the rivers being in many places too narrow to admit of oars."-Smollett's Hist. of England, vol. iii., p. 457.

Oswego fort was established and tolerated by them as a trading-post,* but not as a place of arms for hostile purposes. After having undergone considerable hardships and overcome great difficulties, Shirley reached Oswego by the 18th of August his whole force, however, had not arrived till the end of the month. Want of supplies and the lateness of the season defeated his intention of attacking Niagara that year. On the 24th of October he withdrew from the shores of Lake Ontario, without having accomplished any thing of the slightest importance. Leaving 700 men under Colonel Mercer to complete and occupy the defenses of Oswego, and those of a new fort to be called Fort Ontario, he retraced the difficult route to his old quarters at Albany.‡

* "Mr. Burnet,1 governor of New York and New Jersey, deemed it an object of great magnitude to obtain the command of Lake Ontario, and, in pursuance of this plan, he had, in 1722, erected a trading-house at Oswego, in the country of the Senecas, which soon became of considerable importance. After ineffectual remonstrances, both in America and in Europe, against the re-establishment of Niagara Fort, Governor Burnet, to countervail as much as possible its effects, erected at his own expense a fort at Oswego."-Marshall's Life of Washington, vol. iv., p. 287.

"The preparations for General Shirley's expedition against Niagara were not only deficient, but shamefully slow, though it was well known that even the possibility of his success must in a great measure depend upon his setting out early in the year, as will appear to any person who considers the situation of our fort at Oswego, this being the only way by which he could proceed to Niagara. Oswego lies on the southeast side of Lake Ontario, near 300 miles almost due west from Albany, in New York. The way to it from thence, though long and tedious, is the more convenient, as the far greater part of it admits of water-carriage by the Mohawk River, Wood's Creek, Lake Oneida, and the River Onondaga, which, after a course of twenty or thirty miles, unites with the River Seneca, and their united streams run into the Lake Ontario at the place where Oswego Fort is situated.”—Smollett, vol. iii., p. 458.

"Though repeated advice had been received that the French had there at least 1000 men at their Fort of Frontenac, on the same lake; and, what was still worse, the new forts (that of Ontario, and a new fort bearing the same name as the old, Oswego) were not yet completed, but left to be finished by the hard labor of Colonel Mercer and his little garrison, with the addition of this melancholy circumstance, that if besieged during the winter, it would not be possible for his friends to come to his assistance."-Smollett's England, iii. p. 461. 1 He was the son of Bishop Burnet,

The expedition against Crown Point was the last in commencement of those planned by the council at Albany, but the first in success. By the advice of Shirley, the command was intrusted to William Johnson,* an Irishman by birth. This remarkable man had emigrated to New York at an early age, and by uncommon gifts of mind and body, united to ardent ambition, had risen from the condition of a private soldier, to wealth, consideration, and a seat at the council

* Russell's Modern Europe, vol. iii., p. 279.

"The justly celebrated Sir William Johnson held an office difficult both to define and execute. He might, indeed, be called the Tribune of the Five Nations; their claims he asserted, their rights he protected, and over their minds he possessed a greater sway than any individual had ever attained. He was an uncommonly tall, well-made man, with a fine countenance, which, moreover, had rather an expression of dignified sedateness, approaching to melancholy. He appeared to be taciturn, never wasting words on matters of no importance, but highly eloquent where the occasion called forth his powers. He possessed intuitive sagacity, and the most entire command of temper and of countenance. He did by no means lose sight of his own interest, but, on the contrary, raised himself to power and wealth in an open and active manner, not disdaining any honorable means of benefiting himself. He built two spacious and convenient places of residence on the Mohawk River, known afterward by the name of Johnson Castle and Johnson Hall. The Hall was his summer residence. Here this singular man lived like a little sovereign; kept an excellent table for strangers and officers, whom the course of their duty now frequently led into these wilds; and by confiding entirely in the Indians, and treating them with unwearied truth and justice, without ever yielding to solicitation that he had once refused, he taught them to repose entire confidence in him. So perfect was his dependence on those people, whom his fortitude and other manly virtues had attached to him, that when they returned from their summer excursions, and exchanged the last years furs for fire-arms, &c., they used to pass a few days at the Castle, when his family and most of his domestics were down at the Hall. There they were all liberally entertained by Sir William; and 500 of them have been known for nights together, after drinking pretty freely, to lie around him on the ground, while he was the only white person in a house containing great quantities of every thing that was to them valuable or desirable: Sir William thus united in his mode of life the calm urbanity of a liberal and extensive trader, with the splendid hospitality, the numerous attendance, and the plain though dignified manners of an ancient baron."-Memoirs of an American Lady, vol. ii., p. 61.

Sir William Johnson was regularly appointed and paid by government as Superintendent of Indian Affairs.