To see three hundred young fellows, commanded by a smoothfaced boy, all unaccustomed to the terrors of war; far from home and from all hopes of help; shut up in a dreary wilderness, and surrounded by four times their number of savage foes; and yet, without sign of fear, without thought of surrender, preparing for mortal combat, — O, it was a noble sight! Scarcely since the days of Leonidas and his three hundred deathless Spartans had the sun beheld its equal. With hideous whoops and yells the enemy came on like a host of tigers. The woods, and rocks, and tall tree tops, as the Indians, climbing to the tops of the trees, poured down their bullets into the fort, were in one continued blaze and crash of firearms. Nor were our young warriors idle, but, animated by their gallant chief, plied their rifles with such spirit that their little fort represented a volcano in full blast, roaring and discharging thick sheets of liquid fire and of leaden deaths among their foes. For three glorious hours, salamander-like, enveloped in smoke and flame, they sustained the attack of the enemy's whole force, and laid two hundred of them dead on the spot. Discouraged by such desperate resistance, the French general, the Count de Villiers, sent in a flag to Washington, extolling his gallantry to the skies, and offering him the most honorable terms. It was stipulated that Colonel Washington and his little band of heroes should march away with all the honors of war, and carry with them their military stores and baggage. In the spring of 1755 Washington, while busied in the highest military operations, was summoned to attend General Braddock, who, in the month of February, arrived at Alexandria with two thousand British troops. The Assembly of Virginia appointed eight hundred provincials to join him. The object of this army was to march through the country, by the way of Will's Creek, to Fort Du Quesne, now Pittsburg, or Fort Pitt. As no person was so well acquainted with the frontier country as Washington, and none stood so - an high in military fame, it was thought he would be infinitely serviceable to General Braddock. At the request of the governor and council he cheerfully quitted his own command to act as volunteer aid-de-camp to that very imprudent and unfortunate general. The army, near three thousand strong, marched from Alexandria, and proceeded unmolested within a few miles of Fort Pitt. On the morning of the day in which they expected to arrive the provincial scouts discovered a large party of French and Indians lying in ambush. Washington, with his usual modesty, observed to General Braddock what sort of enemy he had now to deal with enemy who would not, like the Europeans, come forward to a fair contest in the field, but, concealed behind rocks and trees, carry on a deadly warfare with their rifles. He concluded with begging that General Braddock would grant him the honor to let him place himself at the head of the Virginia riflemen and fight them in their own way. And it was generally thought that our young hero and his eight hundred hearts of hickory would very easily have beaten them too; for they were not superior to the force which, with only three hundred, he had handled so roughly a twelvemonth before. But General Braddock, who had all along treated the American officers and soldiers with infinite contempt, instead of, following this truly salutary advice, swelled and reddened with most unmanly rage. 66 'High times, by G-d!" he exclaimed, strutting to and fro, with arms akimbo. "High times, when a young buckskin can teach a British general how to fight! Washington withdrew, biting his lips with grief and indignation to think what numbers of brave fellows would draw short breath that day through the pride and obstinacy of one epauletted fool. The troops were ordered to form and advance in columns through the woods. In a little time the ruin which Washington had predicted ensued. This poor, devoted army, pushed on by their madcap general, fell into the fatal snare which was laid for them. All at once a thousand rifles began the work of death. The ground was instantly covered with the dying and the dead. The British troops, thus slaughtered by hundreds, and by an enemy whom they could not see, were thrown irrecoverably into panic and confusion; and in a few minutes their haughty general, with twelve hundred of his brave but unfortunate countrymen, bit the ground. Poor Braddock closed the tragedy with great decency. He was mortally wounded in the beginning of the action, and Washington had him placed in a cart ready for retreat. Close on the left, where the weight of the French and Indian fire principally fell, Washington and his Virginia riflemen, dressed in blue, sustained the shock. At every discharge of their rifles the wounded general cried out, "O my brave Virginia blues, would to God I could live to reward you for such gallantry!" But he died. Washington buried him in the road, and, to save him from discovery and the scalping knife, ordered the wagons on their retreat to drive over his grave. O God, what is man? Even a thing of nought. Amidst all this fearful consternation and carnage, amidst all the uproar and horrors of a rout, rendered still more dreadful by the groans of the dying, the screams of the wounded, the piercing shrieks of the women, and the yells of the furious assaulting savages, Washington, calm and selfcollected, rallied his faithful riflemen, led them on to the charge, killed numbers of the enemy who were rushing on with tomahawks, checked their pursuit, and brought off the shattered remains of the British army. With respect to our beloved Washington we cannot but mention here two very extraordinary speeches that were uttered about him at this time, and which, as things have turned out, look a good deal like prophecies. A famous Indian warrior, who assisted in the defeat of Braddock, was often heard to swear that Washington was not born to be killed by a bullet; "for," continued he, "I had seventeen fair fires at him with my rifle; and, after all, I could not bring him to the ground.” And indeed, whoever considers that a good rifle, levelled by a proper marksman, hardly ever misses its aim, will readily enough conclude, with this unlettered savage, that some invisible hand must have turned aside his bullets. The Rev. Mr. Davies, in a sermon occasioned by General Braddock's defeat, has these remarkable words: "I beg leave to point the attention of the public to that heroic youth, Colonel George Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has preserved for some great service to this country." EXPEDITION AND DEFEAT OF GENERAL HARMER BY THE INDIANS, 1790. ALTHOUGH a peace was happily effected between the two contending parties, Great Britain and America, in 1783, yet the savages, who had been persuaded to take a part with the former, were unwilling to bury the bloody hatchet. They had not sufficiently bathed that destructive weapon in the blood of the Americans. Without any pretext whatever, they continued to exercise towards them the most wanton acts of barbarity. It appeared from respectable evidence that from the year 1783 until the month of October, 1790, the time the United States commenced offensive operations against the said Indians, that on the Ohio and the frontiers on the south side thereof, they killed, wounded, and took prisoners about one thousand five hundred men, women, and children, besides carrying off upwards of two thousand horses and other property to the amount of fifty thousand dollars. The particulars of many of the instances of barbarity exercised upon the prisoners of different ages and sexes, although supported by indisputable evidence, are of too shocking a nature to be presented to the public. It is sufficient here to observe that the scalping knife and tomahawk were the mildest instruments of death; that in some cases torture by fire and other execrable means were used. But the outrages which were committed upon the frontier inhabitants were not the only injuries that were sustained. Repeated attacks upon detachments of the troops of the United States were at different times made. The following, from |