A sketch of the combat, brief, but admirably exact, is given by the distinguished author before cited in the Appendix to the second volume of the Writings of Washington; and other notices, incidental and of less value, are to be found in numerous historical works. There are also two obscure and obsolete contemporaneous pamphlets, professing to give an account of Braddock's defeat, which, although not so rare as to be unknown to Rich, are hardly possessed of sufficient worth to save them from the limbo of Ariosto. The first of these is "A Letter to a Friend; giving a concise but just Account, according to the Advices hitherto received, of the Ohio Defeat," &c. (Boston, printed; Bristol, reprinted, 1755; 8vo., pp. 30.) The second, to which the editor has had access only since the body of his volume was stereotyped, is entitled "The Expedition of Major-General Edward Braddock to Virginia, with the two Regiments of Hacket and Dunbar. Being Extracts of Letters from an Officer in one of those Regiments to his Friend in London," &c. (London, 1755; 8vo., pp. 29.) This seems to be a mere catch-penny production, made up, perhaps, from the reports of some ignorant camp-follower. The privations and insubordination of the army, and the paltry and despicable character of the colonists and their country form the burthen of his strain. The only facts he relates concerning the expedition that

we do not find elsewhere, are that the General was somewhat of a bon vivant, and had with him "two good Cooks who could make an excellent Ragout out of a pair of Boots, had they but Materials to toss them up with;" and that the soldiers, for lack of ovens, were compelled to bake their maize bread in holes in the ground.

Of a very different value are the copies of the French official reports of the action of the 9th of July, 1755, so kindly placed at the editor's disposal by Mr. Sparks; to whom the Society is also indebted for the use of the copper-plate from which the plan of the battle-field is taken. To Mr. Neville B. Craig, of Pittsburg, it is under like obligations for the plate of Braddock's route; and to Mr. Paul Weber, of Philadelphia, for the drawing of the wood-cut of Braddock's grave, and for the elegant original landscape painting engraved as a frontispiece to this volume. To these gentlemen, and to Mr. John Jordan, junior, of Philadelphia, the Rev. Mr. Franeis-Orpen Morris, of Nunburnholme Rectory, Yorkshire, England, Dr. William M. Darlington, of Pittsburg, and Mr. Edward D. Ingraham, of Philadelphia, both the Society and the editor must confess their obligations. To Mr. Ingersoll and Mr. Buchanan, the late and present Ministers to England, and to Mr. Townsend Ward, the Librarian of the Society,

acknowledgments are also due for the valuable assistance they have, in various ways, rendered him.

So far as regards the manner in which the editor has accomplished his task, he has only to say that, within the limits prescribed him, he has carefully endeavored to fulfil his duty. The Introductory Memoir was considered, by those whose views he felt called upon to regard, desirable to bring clearly before the reader's mind the origin and ulterior causes of this campaign; which was, in fact, but the prologue to the Seven Years' War. An Appendix is also added, in which will be found much matter bearing more or less directly upon the subject in hand. It may be objected that the notes abound too much in "matter needless, of importless burthen;" yet in such a place, it is submitted that no unimportant part of an editor's duty consists in elucidating neglected facts; nor should he spare to dwell upon the personal history of the obscurest name upon the roll:

il figlio Del tale, ed il nipote del cotale Nato per madre della tale.

INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR.

ON the night of the 30th of April, 1748, the preliminaries of what was boldly asserted to be a definitive and lasting peace, were signed by the diplomatic representatives of England, Holland, and France, at the city of Aix-laChapelle. Exhausted by the fatigues of a long, harassing, and unsatisfactory struggle, the two great parties in this arrangement embraced, if not eagerly, at least without reluctance, a scheme which would give to each an opportunity to extricate itself from any unprofitable enterprise or dangerous dilemma in which it had become involved, and to prepare, at leisure, plans for a future and more successful war. "Never," says Lord Mahon, “never, perhaps, did any war, after so many great events, and so large a loss of blood and treasure, end in replacing the nations engaged in it in nearly the same situation as they held at first." The Earl of Chesterfield - the only man in the British Cabinet possessed of sufficient energy and capacity to have directed more successfully hostile measures, or to have procured more advantageous terms of peace

had been compelled to withdraw from power six months before and to the ignorant or feeble hands which continued to hold the reins of government, much of the future, as well as the then existing blunders in the policy of the Crown—at least, so far as America was concerned -may safely be attributed.'

Certainly, no one versed in the political secrets of the day could, by any possibility, have believed that this peace was to be a lasting one. It was deficient in every element of coherence. Nothing was settled by the treaty: conquests all over the world were to be mutually restored; some trifling shiftings of territorial proprietorship on the part of the Italian and other minor princes engaged in the war were agreed upon; a few other articles, relative to European affairs, of little or no consequence in proportion to the cost at which they were effected, were inserted; and the treaty of Utrecht, as well as all former treaties, confirmed in existence. In short, matters were essentially placed in statu quo ante bellum, at a cost to England of £110,000,000. But there were two circumstances, connected with the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, galling in the last degree to British pride and British interest: these were the surrender of Cape Breton to its former possessors, and the delivery of hostages until that was done. Accordingly, whilst the Earl of Sussex and Lord Cathcart

III. Hist. of Eng from Peace of Utrecht, &c., 290. So keenly was their disgrace felt by the English, that Charles Edward himself, then residing at Paris, could not view it without indignation. "If ever I ascend the throne of my ancestors," he exclaimed, "Europe shall see me use my utmost endeavors to force France, in her turn, to send hostages to England."