I had been sent forward to build bridges, to corduroy swamps for the
cannon, and to make roads. I was not to bring on hostilities, but I
was to assert the King’s title and, at need, to resist the French. The
orders were well fitted to get me into trouble, but the capture of
Trent’s fort and men somewhat aided my decision, for this was an act of
open war. While thus occupied, a runner fetched me letters, and among
them one from Lord Fairfax.
As adjutant of the Northern Division since I was nineteen, I was
prepared for much that his lordship’s letter conveyed, but it went
in some respects beyond what I then knew or was prepared for, and, I
may add also, much beyond the views which his lordship came later to
entertain, when men were obliged to elect as between loyalty to the
King and disloyalty to human rights.
This letter now before me runs as follows:
_Greenway Court._
MY DEAR GEORGE: Yours received from Alexandria, and thank you
for the attention when you were so busily engaged. I am always
pleased to be acquainted with anything to your advantage, and
was gratified at your being chosen to be of the force. I desire
you, however, to understand that your worst enemies will not be
the French, or the fickle Indians, but those in the rear.
There is of late years a great desire for freedom in all the
colonies, and men are disposed to dispute the too royal sense
of prerogative on the part of the governors. Whenever, as
now, money is to be voted, the houses in the several colonies
are apt to use the occasion to dispute it, and to bargain for
something else as a reward for their grant of supplies. The
withholding of money has been the chief means of governing
kings by our own Commons. I blame it not. But this present
reluctance is without cause――foolish, and at a wrong season. As
to the difficulty of disciplining our people you know enough,
and will know more; but they will always fight, which may
console for other defects. The want of an organized commissary
you will feel of a surety, but less than with regulars, who do
not know as do our people how to diet their English bellies,
or how to forage at need on wood and river. Prepare, too, for
desertion and drunkenness, which is the curse of the land.
But I must forbear, lest I discourage you, although that I
consider not to be easy. I would that you smoked a pipe. It
confers great equanimity in times of doubt, and the Indians
hold it to be helpful in council; for while a man smokes he
cannot discourse, and thus must needs obtain time for sober
reflection, for which reason it would be well that women took
to the pipe, a custom which would greatly conduce to comfort in
the condition of armed neutrality known as the married state.
Charles Sedley once said in my company that the pipe was the
bachelor’s hearth, and I have found it a good one. Indeed, my
dear George, when I reflect upon the many statues of worthless
kings and the monuments to scoundrels in graveyards where the
dead lie and the living lie about them, I am inclined to set
up a fine memorial at Greenway Court to the unknown Indian who
invented this blessing of the Pipe. He must have been a great
genius.
Wishing you the best of luck, and that I were young enough to
be with you, I am,
Yours,
_Fairfax_.
P. S. You will at some time have to serve with regulars or with
colonial officers appointed by the crown. Your sense of justice
and of what is due to a gentleman will, I am assured, revolt
at the want of parity in pay and at other claims to outrank
gentlemen of the colonies serving in the militia. As to this I
counsel moderation and endurance. Your first duty must be to
the crown.
_F._
It was raining heavily as I sat that night and considered what I
should do. To fall back I had no mind. I had been set to the slow work
of preparing roads, and had made them up to the west branch of the
Youghiogheny, about four miles a day, and here meant to make a bridge.
As I sat in the log cabin alone, deciding what next to do, came in Van
Braam with a warning from the Half-King, and, just after, a trader who
had been driven out by the French and who told me that a force sent
from Duquesne was at least eight hundred in number. This I was sure
could not be the case, and until I knew more I could not decide what to
do. I asked to be alone, and with a candle and a rude map considered
the situation. I concluded that the French would make no considerable
move forward until they had made secure the excellent position they had
taken from Trent. I was of opinion they would meanwhile send out small
parties to scout.
After a council with my officers, we resolved to go on to fortify a
post of the Ohio Company at Redstone Creek, near the Monongahela,
and after sending back urgent letters we set out, doing the best
we could as to the road. On May 9, at Little Meadows, we were met
by many traders, driven in by the French, with tales which much
discouraged my men――in all some two hundred; and still I pushed on to
the Youghiogheny, and there kept the men busy with the bridging of it.
Leaving them occupied in this manner, I explored the Youghiogheny for
a better way by water than over the hills, but found it impracticable,
and so came back to do as best I could with the road over the mountains.
That night I was again called on for a decision. I remember I walked to
and fro, considering how it was but an outpost, with nothing near in
the way of succour, and before me the French and the wilderness.
Van Braam, whom I had sent out to scout, had before this appeared,
bringing news that, eighteen miles below, the French were crossing
by a ford, their number unknown; also that several of our men had
deserted and that there was much uneasiness in the camp. I was myself
quite uneasy enough. Many times since I have been in as doubtful and
perilous situations, where the fate of an empire was concerned, but
then I have had with me officers of distinction. I was alone, hardly
more than a boy, and surrounded by men who were becoming alarmed.
I said to Van Braam that we must not be caught here, but that I would
not fall back very far. The old trooper smiled, and I confess to having
been pleased by this sign of approval. My mind was made up not to
return to the settlements except before an overwhelming force.