succeed Shirley in the chief command; strongly urging Washington's promotion in the regular establishment. "General Braddock had so high an esteem for his merit that he made him one of his aids-de-camp; and if he had survived, I believe he would have provided handsomely for him in the regulars," are part of Dinwiddie's words. And Washington himself says very strongly to Lord Loudoun, "With regard to myself, I cannot forbear adding that, had General Braddock survived his unfortunate defeat, I should have met with preferment agreeable to my wishes. I had his promise to that effect; and I believe that gentleman was too sincere and generous to make unmeaning offers where no favors were asked. General Shirley was not unkind in his promises, but he has gone to England."1 These facts put a very different face upon a connection, honorable to both parties, which Lord Orford so falsely alludes to in his summing up of the Fort Necessity affair, when he says, "This brave braggart learned to blush for his rodomontade, and desiring to serve General Braddock as aid-de-camp, acquitted himself nobly!" The insinuation that Washington sought for the post was, under the circumstances, as ungenerous as untrue.

Owing to a delay in Shirley's progress, the congress of the governors of five colonies met, on the 14th of April, at Alexandria, instead of Annapolis, where Braddock had expected them; when the plans for the summer's operations were fully developed and explained. This having been done (as will appear more fully in Captain Orme's Journal), ' II. Sparks's Washington, 97, 162, 229. 2 I. Walp. Mem. Geo. II., 347.

Mr. Morris laid before the meeting the report of his road commissioners; who, in their portion of the embryo work, had succeeded beyond expectation. The document in question, moreover, presented a very characteristic specimen of the feelings with which those officers on whom the responsibility of failure would have to rest, had come to upon the conduct of Pennsylvania. Sir John St. Clair had visited the commissioners with his warmest indignation, storming "like a Lyon Rampant," on account of the expedition having been so retarded by the delay of the road and the failure of the province to furnish provisions.'

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'Shippen MSS., Vol. I. He threatened them "that instead of marching to the Ohio, he would in nine days march his army into Cumberland County (Penn.) to cut the Roads, press Horses, Wagons, &c. ; that he would not suffer a Soldier to handle an Axe, but by Fire and Sword, oblige the Inhabitants to do it, and take away every Man that refused to the Ohio, as he had, yesterday, some of the Virginians; that he would kill all kind of Cattle and carry away the Horses, burn the Houses, &c.; and that if the French defeated them by the Delays of this Province he would with his Sword drawn pass through the Province and treat the Inhabitants as a parcel of Traitors to his Master; that he would to-morrow write to England by a Man-of-war; shake Mr. Penn's proprietaryship; and represent Pennsylvania as a disaffected province: that he would not stop to impress our Assembly; his hands were not tyed, and that We should find: ordering Us to take these Precautions and instantly publish them to our Governor and Assembly, telling Us he did not value anything they did or resolved, seeing they were dilatory and retarded the March of the Troops, and

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(as he phrased it) on this occasion; and told Us to go to the General, if We pleased, who would give us ten bad Words for one that he had given. * * * He would do our Duty himself and never trust to Us; but we should dearly pay for it. To every sentence he solemnly swore, and desired we might believe him to be in earnest." The Shippen MSS. (consisting of the original papers, &c., of Edward and Joseph Shippen, Col. James Burd, and other members of a family that during the last century occupied a most distinguished position in Pennsylvania) are in the library of the Hist. Soc. of Penn. They contain a store of valuable information respecting

It was not difficult to present this transaction in its true light to the General, from whom St. Clair received a warm and severe reprimand for his officious violence. The road, in the meanwhile, went on slowly enough. The Assembly, being sensible of the great advantage it would be to the province to have a direct communication with Fort Du Quesne, in time consented to its being made, and even projected another to Will's Creek; but the Governor, ascertaining that they were not disposed to expend a sum sufficient to half carry through both of these designs, contrived that the latter road should be abandoned in favor of that to the forks of Youghiogeny, which was of the most pressing importance. But even the cost of this alone gave great offence, as it stood the province in £3000, while they were willing to spend but £800. As there were but about one hundred men employed, its progress was very tardy. Provisions were not regularly supplied them. The laborers, too, were kept in constant alarm of the enemy; no guard was allowed them by the province; and it was not until the end of June that the General detached from his own army Captain Hogg, with fifty men, for their protection. Advertisements, in English and German, for more workmen were vainly dispersed through the country.

2

So great was the necessity of opening a communication by which provisions could be sent to the army from Pennsylvania, that Braddock at first declared he would not advance beyond the place where it was to encounter his

the early history of the State, and an interesting correspondence with many of the chief characters in America.

II. Penn. Arch., 317.

Penn. Gaz., No. 1397.

own route, till it was made. "The general- the officers -the whole army place their account upon this road," wrote Richard Peters, the Secretary of the Province to the Commissioners. Finally, however, on the 17th of July, after they had once or twice been attacked by Indians and most of the party half frightened out of their senses, the chief commissioner, Mr. James Burd, received from Colonel Innes, at Fort Cumberland, notice of the General's defeat, and orders to retire without delay. Mr. Burd executed this movement with coolness and sagacity, leaving nothing behind him that he could possibly bring away, and indeed meriting by his conduct the praise which he subsequently received. It has been thought best thus to dispose, at one view, of the full history of this provincial road as connected with the campaign of 1755:1 it is now necessary to return to the Congress of Alexandria.

What had ever induced the Ministry to select Virginia, instead of Pennsylvania, as the spot from which the expedition was to march, cannot be discovered; but the choice was a most unfortunate one. The former province could afford neither forage, provisions, wagons, nor cattle; in all of which the latter abounded. To be sure, the land carriage between the heads of navigation in the Potomac and the branches of the Ohio was less than a hundred miles; but this was a convenience of which Braddock could not avail himself. And it was computed at the time that had he landed at Philadelphia his march would have been shortened by six weeks, and £40,000 would have been

1

Shippen MSS. passim. II. Penn. Arch., 320, 345, 357, 363, 373. VI. Col. Rec., 433, 460, 466, 476.

saved in the cost of the expedition. Carlisle would have made an infinitely better frontier station than Will's Creek, being far more accessible from Philadelphia than Fort Cumberland was from Alexandria, and through a more productive and cultivated country: the distance from Fort Du Quesne was, however, much greater. This view is sufficiently proved from the fact that Forbes, in 1758, after full deliberation, judged it wiser to cut a new road through this province than to follow the path already opened by Braddock. The only motive, then, for the unhappy directions with which he was saddled must be believed to have been one publicly suggested in London at the time; namely, that to gratify a political favorite with a commission of 21 per cent. on the funds sent to that country, Virginia was fixed upon for the debarcation of the troops.1 The moment the General began to investigate the preparations made here for his subsistence, he perceived their utter deficiency. The twenty-five hundred horses, two hundred and fifty wagons, and eleven hundred beeves which were promised him from Maryland and Virginia, were not forthcoming: twenty wagons and two hundred horses were all that could be produced; and the provisions furnished by Maryland were on inspection discovered to be utterly worthless. Such disappointments as these were sufficient to inflame even a placable temper; and in the general failure, his wrath blindly vented itself upon the people of that province which abounded in all that he desired, yet from which he had received nothing. Fortunately, Governor

'Lewis Evans's Second Essay (Phil. 1756), p. 7. XXV. Gent. Mag., 378, 388. Hanbury was probably the person alluded to.