of June resolved, with one voice, to retreat to their former position at the Great Meadows. Two miserable teams and a few pack-horses being all their means of transporting their ammunition, the officers at once added their own steeds to the train; and, leaving half his baggage behind, Washington, for four pistoles, hired some of the soldiers to carry the remainder. For twelve weary miles over the Alleghanies did the Virginians drag with their own hands the seven swivels that formed their park; the Independents obstinately refusing to bear any share of the burthen, whether of drawing guns, carrying ammunition, or clearing the road. On the 1st of July, the party arrived at the Great Meadows in such a state of fatigue that, unless their stores were abandoned, it was absolutely necessary for them to pause there for a few days. They had a plenty of milch-cows for beef, but no salt to cure their meat, so it was not possible to lay in a stock of salt provisions; and as for bread, though they had been eight days without it, the convoy from the settlements brought but a few bags of flour, not more than enough for five days. But learning that the two Independent Companies of New York were arrived at Annapolis on the 20th of June, they concluded to make a stand here, in hope of receiving a speedy reinforcement. The spot selected for the works was well chosen; and to these rude defences was given the suggestive title of FORT NECESSITY. To Robert Stobo, a captain in the Virginia Regiment, the merit of being their contriver is attributable. The fort was a log breast-work 100 feet square, surrounded in part by a shallow ditch; and was commenced immediately on Washington's arrival. As day

broke on the morning of the 3d of July, the near approaches of the enemy were proclaimed by some of their scouts shooting down an English sentry; and at 11 A.M., the whole force came in sight and invested the petty fortress. Expecting to be stormed, the Independents were posted in the ditch, the Virginians being drawn up within their lines, intending to retain their fire till it was certain to take effect. The enemy not adopting this course, however, but sheltering themselves among the trees that crowned a neighboring hill, the men were withdrawn to the cover of their works, and a dropping, desultory fire was kept up on either side during all the day. When night fell, and their ammunition (which only amounted to a handful of ball each, and powder in proportion), was nearly exhausted, the French repeatedly called a parley, which at last was listened to by the incredulous English; and a capitulation was speedily arranged. To the besieged terms were proffered, not to be lightly rejected by men in their position: for two bags of flour and a little bacon now constituted all the provisions of 300 men; their guns were wet and foul, and there were but two screws in the party with which to clean them; and, to crown all, one-half the garrison was drunk. Yet even in this strait the capitulation produced by Captain Van Braam, who, being the only officer (save one who was wounded), that could speak French, was selected as his plenipotentiary, was considerably modified by Washington. The French stipulated for the surrender of the artillery and ammunition; the English insisted on

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retaining the one and destroying the other; and even this was acquiesced in. The cattle, etc., had already fallen into the enemy's hands. The articles of surrender, however, while they conceded all honors of war to the garrison, contained one awkward provision to which Washington unwittingly put his hand, in terms admitting that Jumonville's death was an assassination. This expression, by "the too great condescension of Van Braam," had been suffered to stand on the paper; and as his leader was compelled to take his oral version of their nature (for it was now nearly midnight, and the falling rain prevented a candle's burning more than a moment at a time), which substituted the word "death" for this odious phrase; it was not until afterwards that its real language was discovered. In the meanwhile the negotiator, Captain Jacob Van Braam, together with Captain Stobo, both Virginian officers, were given up to the enemy as pledges of the faithful performance of the articles of surrender.3

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These guns, which were probably merely spiked and abandoned, were in later years bored out or otherwise restored to their former condition. For a long time they lay on the Great Meadows, useless and disregarded. After the Revolution, however, when bands of settlers commenced to travel towards the West, it was a favorite amusement to discharge these cannon: the Meadow being a usual halting-place. They were finally transported to Kentucky by some enterprising pioneers, and their subsequent fate is unknown.

II. Sparks's Washington, 51, 456. Stobo's Memoirs, 17. Capt. Stephen's letter in Penn. Gaz., No. 1339. Col. Innes to Gov. Hamilton, VI. Col. Rec., 51: where also a correct copy of the capitulation will be found. II. Olden Time, 213.

3 Robert Stobo was born at Glasgow, 1727, of respectable parentage, and was settled in Virginia as a merchant when the French troubles began in 1754. Dinwiddie giving him a company in Frey's regiment, he took an active part in Washington's campaign. It is not impossible he was one

On the following morning, the fourth of July, 1754, with drums beating and colors flying, the little garrison evacuated its feeble entrenchments, and sadly turned their faces homewards. Probably the memory of this day whose return, twenty-one years after, was destined to open to him the gates of immortal fame, was for a season

of "those raw, surly, and tyrannical Scots, several of them mere boys from behind the counters of the factors here," with whom, according to Maury (Huguenot Family, 404), the governor filled the corps. As the stipulations for which he remained a hostage were not complied with, he was, with his brother captain, Van Braam, sent from Du Quesne to Canada, but not before he had contrived to transmit a plan of its works to the English. His letters and drawings being found in Braddock's cabinet, excited no little odium against him. At last he escaped from captivity (whether with or without Van Braam is not certainly known to the writer), and after a series of romantic adventures, reached England. His Memoirs were there published, a reprint of which has lately been given at Pittsburg, by Mr. Neville Craig, to whose notes the preceding remarks are due. The only remaining feature in his story that has been discovered is the fact that on June 5th, 1760, he was made a captain in the 15th Foot (Amherst's Regiment), then serving in America; which position he held as late as 1765. He was an eccentric creature; an acquaintance of David Hume and a friend of Smollett, to whom he is said to have sate for the character of the immortal Lismahago. As for Van Braam, his career is still more obscure. Denounced as a traitor for his agency in the capitulation of Fort Necessity, it must not be forgotten that three weeks before the surrender, Washington (to whom he had served as interpreter on the mission of 1753), pronounced him "an experienced, good officer, and very worthy of the command he has enjoyed:" that he consented to going as a hostage to the French, with the certainty of his fraud being soon discovered by his own. party, had he committed one; that he was detained rather as a prisoner than a hostage; and that he risked his life to return to the English. These facts do not exculpate him from the charge of imbecility, but they are inconsistent with the assumption of his deliberate treason. In 1770, too, it would appear that he claimed and obtained his share of the Virginia bounty lands, with Washington as Commissioner; and on 14th June, 1777, was made Major of the Third Battalion of the 60th Foot, or Royal Americans, then stationed in the West Indies.

marked in Washington's calendar as the blackest, the most melancholy epoch of his life. His visions of future fame in the service of his native land seemed to have received a dangerous, perhaps a fatal, downfall: nor could the reflections that its immediate memory must have adduced have been of a very cheering character. In spite of the stipulation of the French commander, the Indians hung on the skirts of his diminished band, plundering the baggage, and committing a hundred annoyances and mischiefs. The medical stores they entirely destroyed; thus cruelly aggravating the unhappy condition of the wretches, who, sick and wounded, and without a horse to assist them, were to traverse fifty miles of inhospitable forests, ere they could reach the nearest halting-place on Will's Creek. The number of savages, hitherto regarded as friendly to the colonies, whom he recognised enlisted under the standard of the enemy, was another source of regret. And so long as the French preserved their local superiority, he very well knew how little hope there was of these fickle people returning to their ancient friendships: nor was he blind to the unconcealed disgust at the result of the campaign of even those whose lot was immutably cast with the English.'

1 The celebrated Seneca chief Thanacrishon (better known as the HalfKing), complained bitterly to Conrad Weiser of Washington's conduct. "The Colonel," he said, "was a good-natured man, but had no experience; he took upon him to command the Indians as his slaves, and would have them every day upon the scout, and to attack the enemy by themselves, but would by no means take advice from the Indians. He lay in one place from one full moon to the other, without making any fortifications, except that little thing on the Meadow; whereas, had he taken advice, and built such fortifications as he (the Half-King) advised him, he might easily have beat off the French. But the French in the engagement acted like cowards,