FOUNDING OF PORT CUMBERLAND--SECRET LETTER OF STOBO--THE INDIAN MESSENGER--
PROJECT OF DINWIDDIE--HIS PERPLEXITIES--A TAINT OF REPUBLICANISM IN THE
COLONIAL ASSEMBLIES--DINWIDDIE'S MILITARY MEASURES--WASHINGTON QUITS THE
SERVICE--OVERTURES OF GOVERNOR SHARPE, OF MARYLAND--WASHINGTON'S DIGNIFIED
REPLY--QUESTIONS OF RANK BETWEEN ROYAL AND PROVINCIAL TROOPS--TREATMENT OF
THE FRENCH PRISONERS--FATE OF LA FORCE--ANECDOTES OF STOBO AND VAN BRAAM.
Early in August Washington rejoined his regiment, which had arrived at
Alexandria by the way of Winchester. Letters from Governor Dinwiddie urged
him to recruit it to the former number of three hundred men, and join
Colonel Innes at Wills' Creek, where that officer was stationed with
Mackay's independent company of South Carolinians, and two independent
companies from New York; and had been employed in erecting a work to serve
as a frontier post and rallying point; which work received the name of Fort
Cumberland, in honor of the Duke of Cumberland, captain-general of the
British army.
In the mean time the French, elated by their recent triumph, and thinking
no danger at hand, relaxed their vigilance at Fort Duquesne. Stobo, who was
a kind of prisoner at large there, found means to send a letter secretly by
an Indian, dated July 28, and directed to the commander of the English
troops. It was accompanied by a plan of the fort. "There are two hundred
men here," writes he, "and two hundred expected; the rest have gone off in
detachments to the amount of one thousand, besides Indians. None lodge in
the fort but Contrecoeur and the guard, consisting of forty men and five
officers; the rest lodge in bark cabins around the fort. The Indians have
access day and night, and come and go when they please. If one hundred
trusty Shawnees, Mingoes, and Delawares were picked out, they might
surprise the fort, lodging themselves under the palisades by day, and at
night secure the guard with their tomahawks, shut the sally-gate, and the
fort is ours."
One part of Stobo's letter breathes a loyal and generous spirit of
self-devotion. Alluding to the danger in which he and Van Braam, his
fellow-hostage, might be involved, he says, "Consider the good of the
expedition without regard to us. When we engaged to serve the country it
was expected we were to do it with our lives. For my part, I would die a
hundred deaths to have the pleasure of possessing this fort but one day.
They are so vain of their success at the Meadows it is worse than death to
hear them. Haste to strike." [Footnote: Hazard's Register of Penn., iv.,
329.]
The Indian messenger carried the letter to Aughquick and delivered it into
the hands of George Croghan. The Indian chiefs who were with him insisted
upon his opening it. He did so, but on finding the tenor of it, transmitted
it to the Governor of Pennsylvania. The secret information communicated by
Stobo, may have been the cause of a project suddenly conceived by Governor
Dinwiddie, of a detachment which, by a forced march across the mountains,
might descend upon the French and take Fort Duquesne at a single blow; or,
failing that, might build a rival fort in its vicinity. He accordingly
wrote to Washington to march forthwith for Wills' Creek, with such
companies as were complete, leaving orders with the officers to follow as
soon as they should have enlisted men sufficient to make up their
companies. "The season of the year," added he, "calls for despatch. I
depend upon your usual diligence and spirit to encourage your people to be
active on this occasion."
The ignorance of Dinwiddie in military affairs, and his want of forecast,
led him perpetually into blunders. Washington saw the rashness of an
attempt to dispossess the French with a force so inferior that it could be
harassed and driven from place to place at their pleasure. Before the
troops could be collected, and munitions of war provided, the season would
be too far advanced. There would be no forage for the horses; the streams
would be swollen and unfordable; the mountains rendered impassable by snow,
and frost, and slippery roads. The men, too, unused to campaigning on the
frontier, would not be able to endure a winter in the wilderness, with no
better shelter than a tent; especially in their present condition,
destitute of almost every thing. Such are a few of the cogent reasons urged
by Washington in a letter to his friend William Fairfax, then in the House
of Burgesses, which no doubt was shown to Governor Dinwiddie, and probably
had an effect in causing the rash project to be abandoned.
The governor, in truth, was sorely perplexed about this time by
contradictions and cross-purposes, both in military and civil affairs. A
body of three hundred and fifty North Carolinian troops had been enlisted
at high pay, and were to form the chief reinforcement of Colonel Innes at
Wills' Creek. By the time they reached Winchester, however, the provincial
military chest was exhausted, and future pay seemed uncertain; whereupon
they refused to serve any longer, disbanded themselves tumultuously, and
set off for their homes without taking leave.
The governor found the House of Burgesses equally unmanageable. His demands
for supplies were resisted on what he considered presumptuous pretexts; or
granted sparingly, under mortifying restrictions. His high Tory notions
were outraged by such republican conduct. "There appears to me," said he,
"an infatuation in all the assemblies in this part of the world." In a
letter to the Board of Trade he declared that the only way effectually to
check the progress of the French, would be an act of parliament requiring
the colonies to contribute to the common cause, _independently of
assemblies_; and in another, to the Secretary of State, he urged the
policy of compelling the colonies to their duty to the king by a general
poll-tax of two and sixpence a head. The worthy governor would have made a
fitting counsellor for the Stuart dynasty. Subsequent events have shown how
little his policy was suited to compete with the dawning republicanism of
America.
In the month of October the House of Burgesses made a grant of twenty
thousand pounds for the public service; and ten thousand more were sent out
from England, beside a supply of firearms. The governor now applied himself
to military matters with renewed spirit; increased the actual force to ten
companies; and, as there had been difficulties among the different kinds of
troops with regard to precedence, he reduced them all to independent
companies; so that there would be no officer in a Virginia regiment above
the rank of captain.
This shrewd measure, upon which Dinwiddie secretly prided himself as
calculated to put an end to the difficulties in question, immediately drove
Washington out of the service; considering it derogatory to his character
to accept a lower commission than that under which his conduct had gained
him a vote of thanks from the Legislature.
Governor Sharpe, of Maryland, appointed by the king commander-in-chief of
all the forces engaged against the French, sought to secure his valuable
services, and authorized Colonel Fitzhugh, whom he had placed in temporary
command of the army, to write to him to that effect. The reply of
Washington (15th Nov.) is full of dignity and spirit, and shows how deeply
he felt his military degradation.
"You make mention," says he, "of my continuing in the service and retaining
my colonel's commission. This idea has filled me with surprise; for if you
think me capable of holding a commission that has neither rank nor
emolument annexed to it, you must maintain a very contemptible opinion of
my weakness, and believe me more empty than the commission itself." After
intimating a suspicion that the project of reducing the regiment into
independent companies, and thereby throwing out the higher officers, was
"generated and hatched at Wills' Creek,"--in other words, was an expedient
of Governor Dinwiddie, instead of being a peremptory order from England, he
adds, "Ingenuous treatment and plain dealing I at least expected. It is to
be hoped the project will answer; it shall meet with my acquiescence in
every thing except personal services. I herewith inclose Governor Sharpe's
letter, which I beg you will return to him with my acknowledgments for the
favor he intended me. Assure him, sir, as you truly may, of my reluctance
to quit the service, and the pleasure I should have received in attending
his fortunes. Inform him, also, that it was to obey the call of honor and
the advice of my friends that I declined it, and not to gratify any desire
I had to leave the military line. My feelings are strongly bent to arms."
Even had Washington hesitated to take this step, it would have been forced
upon him by a further regulation of government, in the course of the
ensuing winter, settling the rank of officers of his majesty's forces when
joined or serving with the provincial forces in North America, "which
directed that all such as were commissioned by the king, or by his general
commander-in-chief in North America, should take rank of all officers
commissioned by the governors of the respective provinces. And further,
that the general and field officers of the provincial troops should have no
rank when serving with the general and field officers commissioned by the
crown; but that all captains and other inferior officers of the royal
troops should take rank over provincial officers of the same grade, having
older commissions."
These regulations, originating in that supercilious assumption of
superiority which sometimes overruns and degrades true British pride, would
have been spurned by Washington, as insulting to the character and conduct
of his high-minded brethren of the colonies. How much did this open
disparagement of colonial honor and understanding, contribute to wean from
England the affection of her American subjects, and prepare the way for
their ultimate assertion of independence.
Another cause of vexation to Washington was the refusal of Governor
Dinwiddie to give up the French prisoners, taken in the affair of De
Jumonville, in fulfilment of the articles of capitulation. His plea was,
that since the capitulation, the French had taken several British subjects,
and sent them prisoners to Canada he considered himself justifiable in
detaining those Frenchmen which he had in his custody. He sent a flag of
truce, however, offering to return the officer Drouillon, and the two
cadets, in exchange for Captains Stobo and Van Braam, whom the French held
as hostages; but his offer was treated with merited disregard. Washington
felt deeply mortified by this obtuseness of the governor on a point of
military punctilio and honorable faith, but his remonstrances were
unavailing.
The French prisoners were clothed and maintained at the public expense, and
Drouillon and the cadets were allowed to go at large; the private soldiers
were kept in confinement. La Force, also, not having acted in a military
capacity, and having offended against the peace and security of the
frontier, by his intrigues among the Indians, was kept in close durance.
Washington, who knew nothing of this, was shocked on visiting Williamsburg,
to learn that La Force was in prison. He expostulated with the governor on
the subject, but without effect; Dinwiddie was at all times pertinacious,
but particularly so when he felt himself to be a little in the wrong.
As we shall have no further occasion to mention La Force, in connection
with the subject of this work, we will anticipate a page of his fortunes.
After remaining two years in confinement he succeeded in breaking out of
prison, and escaping into the country. An alarm was given, and circulated
far and wide, for such was the opinion of his personal strength, desperate
courage, wily cunning, and great influence over the Indians, that the most
mischievous results were apprehended should he regain the frontier. In the
mean time he was wandering about the country ignorant of the roads, and
fearing to make inquiries, lest his foreign tongue should betray him. He
reached King and Queen Court House, about thirty miles from Williamsburg,
when a countryman was struck with his foreign air and aspect. La Force
ventured to put a question as to the distance and direction of Fort
Duquesne, and his broken English convinced the countryman of his being the
French prisoner, whose escape had been noised about the country. Watching
an opportunity he seized him, and regardless of offers of great bribes,
conducted him back to the prison of Williamsburg, where he was secured with
double irons, and chained to the floor of his dungeon.
The refusal of Governor Dinwiddie to fulfil the article of the capitulation
respecting the prisoners, and the rigorous treatment of La Force, operated
hardly upon the hostages, Stobo and Van Braam, who, in retaliation, were
confined in prison in Quebec, though otherwise treated with kindness. They,
also, by extraordinary efforts, succeeded in breaking prison, but found it
more difficult to evade the sentries of a fortified place. Stobo managed to
escape into the country; but the luckless Van Braam sought concealment
under an arch of a causeway leading from the fortress. Here he remained
until nearly exhausted by hunger. Seeing the Governor of Canada passing by,
and despairing of being able to effect his escape, he came forth from his
hiding place, and surrendered himself, invoking his clemency. He was
remanded to prison, but experienced no additional severity. He was
subsequently shipped by the governor from Quebec to England, and never
returned to Virginia. It is this treatment of Van Braam, more than any
thing else, which convinces us that the suspicion of his being in collusion
with the French in regard to the misinterpretation of the articles of
capitulation, was groundless. He was simply a blunderer.