USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Discovery and conquests of the Northwest, with the history of Chicago, Vol. I > Part 8
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The double power, thus gathering force and keeping pace with the growth of the State, was too transcendant for the varied and multiplied wants of individual enter- prise. But the French peasant did not look ahead so far as this. He was contented, because his mind was dwarfed within the narrow compass of present neces- sities, and his old-fashioned but gaudy attire, as well as his daily bread, came with a small effort. Without
79
The Question of National Ownership.
ambition, and almost without temptation to offend against his fellows, he had little to trouble his con- science, or, if he had anything, the burden was readily lifted by his father confessor .*
Turning from this picture to that of the English colonies, is like leaping over an unbridged chasm. Here two positive elements rose into prominence, like indi- genous trees in a forest. The most potent of these was the Puritan element. When the Protestant religion was first introduced into England in 1528, its proselytes, though not men of deeper thoughts than those of Bavaria, Wirtemburg, and Moravia, yet were more demonstrative and aggressive than their German brethren, and, in 1550, the new faith had grown into
formidable proportions. In 1563, an open issue was taken with the established church, and from that day, till the Puritans planted their feet on the rock of Ply- mouth, there was no truce to religious agitation in Eng- land. This rock proved a safety-valve for the preser- vation of the old English Church and State, united as they were into one marvelous tower of strength, in defiance of the Puritan element.
Happy was it for the world, that Plymouth Rock became the retort which concentrated the elastic force of Puritanism, and economised it for the use of America, there to grow up with the new State, modified by the public policy of government, better suited to the wants of the master spirits of that age, because it was one of their own making.
When these fugitives crossed the Atlantic, they brought with them the true philosopher's stone. They represented the elements of national progress, on a grander scale than had ever entered into the imagin- ation of a knight of a baronial castle. Science, litera- ture and exalted ideas of liberty, were everywhere diffused and written upon the immaculate tablet which was opened before them beyond the Atlantic.
The other element of American power was planted at Jamestown. Here the acknowledged representative of the Englishman, supreme in his convictions of pro- priety, planted his standards, and became the chivalric representative of liberty in its broadest sense.
Both the Jamestown and Plymouth elements rapidly
*Raynal's Hist. East and West Indies; Monette's Miss. Valley; Martin's Louisiana.
80
Convention at Albany.
grew into power, and, forgetting the old religious issues- that had made enemies of their fathers, united together and subordinated the German and the Swedish colonies to their rule. Along the Atlantic coast the various colonies, extending from the New Hampshire colony to the Georgia colony, were under English protection, and held their lands by virtue of English charters, but between each no confederation had ever been thought of.
Up to this time the colonists had manifested but little concern about the interior, except the Virginia colony, who had pushed across the Alleghenies, and founded some trading stations on the head-waters of the Ohio river.
The great question to be settled was, Where should the line be run between New France and the lands of the English colonists in America? From its magnitude, it had already attracted the attention of the powers of Europe, who were on the watch lest their balance of power should be thrown out of equilibrium, by too great a share of the American continent falling into the hands of either France or England. Accordingly, by the treaty of Aix la Chapelle, in 1748, which hushed Europe to peace after thirty years of war, it was pro- vided that the line should be established by commis- sioners appointed by the sovereigns of the two respective nations. In 1752, these commissioners met in Paris, but out of the tangle of old English charters, French forms of possession, etc., no result could be reached which satisfied the ambitious design of both countries, and the question was left to be settled by future destiny. To control this destiny, preparations for war were now made on both sides.
The French strengthened their forts, particularly Louisburg on the coast of cape Breton, Quebec and Crown Point on the west bank of Lake Champlain .*
The English, on their part, called a convention of their thirteen colonies in America, to meet at Albany in June, 1753, for the purpose of concerting measures of defense. Here were assembled the representatives of the crown, sapient and cautious, but not more so
*This fort had been built by the French in 1731. It was within the ack- nowledged limits of English territory, but had been held ever since by the French, as a standing menace to the Hudson river settlements, aggressive and defiant.
Capt. Celeron Buries Leaden Plates.
than the deputies of her trans-Atlantic children. The crown representatives refused to acknowledge any united action of the colonies, lest this union might, at some future day become too powerful for the public welfare; while the colonies refused to sign a compact giving the mother country the right to tax them, even for defensive purposes. No logic on either side could break through this dead-lock, and the convention adjourned without accomplishing any result.
Meantime, the issue was hastening to a crisis on the . western frontier. As early as 1748, Conrad Weiser (a noted interpreter at Indian treaties) had been on the head-waters of the Ohio river as agent for the Ohio Company, then forming. A trading station at Logs- town, eighteen miles below the fork of the Ohio, was then established by this company, which was composed of Virginians, among whom were Lawrence and Augus- tine, brothers of George Washington. Half a million acres of land were granted them by the crown of Eng ... land, for purposes of colonization. Two other com. panies were also chartered, for similar purposes the same year.
Soon as the French learned of this, Gallisoniere, Governor of Canada, determined also to assert the French claim to the country along the Ohio, and the next year, 1749, sent Capt. Louis Celeron to the present site of Erie, Pa., with orders to proceed thence to the head of a small creek eighteen miles distant, and follow down its banks to the Allegheny river, and down this stream to the Ohio river; burying leaden plates along the route, as monuments of French possession west of this line. This done, he sent a letter to Gov. Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, to warn the English not to trespass beyond it.
The same year, two more English trading posts were established in the West-one on the Great Miami river, called Loramie's store, and the other on the Maumee.
The succeeding year, 1750, Christopher Gist, In intrepid frontiersman and surveyor, started on a tour of exploration from the head-waters of the Potomac, late in October. Pushing boldly into the savage glooms of the forest west of the fork of the Ohio, he crossed the Scioto and visited the Indian towns on the Miami; but he was not the first Englishman on the disputed ground. George Crogan and Andrew Montour, both.
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The French Captured an English Post.
celebrated for frontier accomplishments, were then among the various Indian tribes, to influence them in favor of the English, and secure their trade. Mr. Gist conferred with both these men, who warned him against visiting certain localities where the French interest prevailed. But there was among the Indians a division of sentiment as to whose cause they should espouse in the coming issue,* and never were a people more per- plexed to know on which side their interest laid.
While Mr. Gist was making this tour, news came to him of the capture of several Englishmen by the French along the northern waters of the Ohio.
On the Muskingum he made the acquaintance of a white woman who had been captured from the New England States at the age of ten years. She was now over fifty, the wife of an Indian and mother of several children. She had a vivid recollection of her childhood home, of the religious turn of the Puritan mind, and was much astonished at the wickedness she had seen practiced by the white people when they came among the Indians.t
Mr. Gist crossed the Ohio river and returned home, in May, 1751, by the way of the Kentucky river settle- ments, which were then in their infancy.
Early the next year theFrench visited the country, in sufficient force to capture the English trading post on the Miami. A desperate defence, however, was made, fourteen of the assailants having been killed. The traders were taken to Canada. Several English families lived at this post, which made it the beginning of a settlement as well as a trading post. The Twightwees or Miamis helped to defend the place, while the Ottawas and Chippewas assisted the French in taking it.
While these acts of hostility were transpiring on the Miami, the Ohio Company were convening a council at Logstown with the Indians, for the purpose of confirm- ing the old treaty of Lancaster, by virtue of which large tracts of land on the Ohio had been ceded to this com- pany by the Six Nations.# Through the influence of
*The Miamis or Twightwees were friendly to the Engli-h, and portions of the Six Nations and Delawares, who had emigrated to the Ohio country from the East.
"Journal of Gist, published in Pownall's Topography, London, 1776.
¿The treaty of Lancaster was a cession of Ohio lands to the English by the Six Nations, by virtue of their conquest of the tribes occupying said lands.
83
Washington's Mission to the French.
Montour, the treaty was reluctantly, on the part of the Indians, confirmed; but the war which soon followed swept away all these distinctions as to land titles.
The French, meantime, according to their usual practice, early in 1753 commenced building forts in the disputed territory. The first one, named Presque Isle, was built where Erie, Pa., now stands. From this place they cut a wagon road eighteen miles southwardly, through the forest, to a small lake near the present site of Waterford. Here they built another fort, which they named Le Bœuf; thence, following down the stream of which this was the fountain-head, to where it empties into the Allegheny river, they built a third fort, which they named Venango, after an old Indian town on the same spot. These forts were on the same line along which Capt. Celeron had buried leaden plates four years previously.
Governor Dinwiddie, of the Virginia colony, always tenacious in the defence of English rights, beheld these French approaches to the Ohio with deep concern. Here was the pivot on which hung the fate of the West and the then limitless interior. To secure at least a foothold in it, he determined to send a messenger to the French, to warn them that the English claimed the country on the head-waters of the Ohio, and request them to leave it.
George Washington, then twenty-one years old, was selected for this mission. He had eight attendants, the two principal of whom were Christopher Gist, the sur- veyor already mentioned, and Jacob Van Braum, an intelligent German, who afterwards acted as interpreter at the surrender of Ft. Necessity. He left Wills Creek, the present site of Cumberland, on the 15th of Novem- ber, 1753. At Logstown dwelt a famous Six Nation chief, named Half-King, who was a friend to Washing- ton, and whose jealousy of the French made him an ally of the English. Deeming his council, and especi- ally his influence, indispensable to the success of the enterprise, Washington proceeded immediately to his headquarters and obtained an interview with him. Whatever else may be the frailties of Indian character, hasty diplomacy is not one of them, as Washington learned. Three days of his precious time were con- sumed in attendance on his majesty. The ceremonials of the council over, Half-King entered heartily into
84
His Perilous Return.
Washington's plans, and, with three other chiefs, accompanied him to Ft. Le Bœuf, the headquarters of M. Le Guarduer St. Pierre, the commander of the French forces.
Their route lay northward, through the forests, to the mouth of Le Bœuf Creek, now called French Creek, thence up its banks to Ft. Le Bœuf. On arriving at the place they met the commander. He was an accomplished and scholarly old knight, and notwithstanding the rustic appearance of the beardless youth before him, who came with a message warning him to leave, he received him with deserved attention; for nobility of character cannot be disguised by a rough exterior, in the estima- tion of one who possesses it himself. During the two days Washington spent at the place, the hospitalities of the fort were extended to him, with that hearty good- fellowship for which a Frenchman is conspicuous.
As might be supposed, the mission was fruitless of results, for the French commander did not allow him- self to lose sight of the interests of France, and, to that end, plied his arts of pleasing to Half-King also.
This was a matter of no small annoyance to Washing- ton, whose apprehensions being aroused that he might win him over to the friendship of the French, by the influence of his free wines, he openly accused him of such an intention; but the complacent diplomat silenced these charges with fresh sallies of politeness, and thus the matter ended.
When Washington was about taking leave, the generous Frenchman presented him a canoe well filled with provisions, among which the wine was not forgotten.
Washington with Gist started down French Creek with the canoe, giving orders to Van Braum to meet him at Venango, its mouth, with the men and horses accompanying the expedition. The canoe was now abandoned, Half-King and the other chiefs wishing to remain here. Washington and his party took leave of them and started down the west bank of the Allegheny river.
The poor horses were so spent with hunger and fatigue, that their progress through the trackless forests was slow; and Washington determined to set on foot in advance with Gist, and leave the emaciated beasts in charge of Van Braum and the rest of the party, to follow as fast as they could travel.
85
Quaker Doctrines of Peace.
It was now December, and the ground was covered with a sprinkling of snow; but both of the travelers were accustomed to "life in the bush," and, making light of their forest march, slept away each day's fatigue enveloped in their blankets, each night, in the open air of winter.
On their way, at two different times, they encountered a faithless Indian, whose pretended friendships were abruptly broken off by attempts to shoot them. Happily, each time, the ball missed its aim, though at one of these treacherous attacks only fifteen paces intervened between the savage and Gist, his intended victim. This danger passed, they soon arrived at the place where they wished to cross the Allegheny river. Here they worked all day to make a raft, having only "a very poor hatchet," says Washington, in his journal, to make it with. Just before dark they launched it and started for the opposite shore; but when the current was reached heavy masses of ice came floating down stream with such force as to threaten to sink their frail bark. To prevent this, Washington thrust out a setting pole against the moving masses of ice, when, by some mis- directed strain, he was hurled into the water. He soon regained the raft, half-paralyzed by his wintry bath; and now the problem was, how to gain the opposite shore. This was impossible, and they floated down with the current, till an island, desolate but merciful, caught them from the dangerous toils of the Allegheny. Here they spent the night. The cold was so intense that Gist's feet were frozen in the morning, and he could hardly walk. A solid bridge of ice had formed, over which they passed to the eastern shore, and the river was crossed.
Washington now assisted his disabled companion along the rugged way, till the trading establishment of a Mr. Frazier was reached, a few miles below, and here they rested three days. Thence Washington proceeded to the settlements, reaching Wills Creek January 6th, 1754.
The message he brought from the French commander, refusing to leave the country unless ordered to do so by the Marquis Du Quesne, Governor of Canada, was handed to Governor Dinwiddie.
The latter had not been idle during the interval of suspense. He had appealed to Governor Hamilton, of
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French Versus English Fort Building.
the Pennsylvania colony, who in turn used his utmost exertions to awaken his constituents to the importance of the subject, and to this end summoned an extra session of the Assembly at Philadelphia; but this body were divided in opinion as to whether the French were invading the country belonging to the English crown, and, under the inspiration of the teachings of William Penn and the Quaker doctrines of peace, suggested that the country in question belonged to neither the English nor the French, but to the Indians. This was the underlying sentiment by which supplies were withheld.
The New York colony though more remote from the scene, voted five thousand pounds.
With the advice of the British Secretary of State, Governor Dinwiddie now determined to take decisive steps to secure a foothold on the Ohio by building a fort at the fork where Pittsburg now stands.
It was proposed to raise two companies for this pur- pose, as volunteers, one of which was to be raised by Washington, and the other by a Mr. Trent, a noted frontier ranger.
In the spring of 1754, the French line from Presque Isle to the mouth of Le Bœuf Creek (French Creek) became a bustling thoroughfare, along which French scouts, with their tawny allies, were constantly passing. Ft. Venango was finished at the confluence of this creek with the Allegheny river early in April; but while these forest wilds gleamed with the glitter of French bayonets and echoed with war-whoops, a quieter and more endur- ing force was gathering to the rescue, from the Virginia frontier.
Already the Ohio Company had sent a number of men to make a fort and settlement at the fork, among whom were a few families.
This advance, consisting of a caravan of forty-one men and seventeen horses, loaded to their utmost capacity, had been met by Washington on his return. Meanwhile, the military spirit gathered force, as the issue appeared to approach a crisis, and it was determ- ined to raise six companies instead of two, and to give the chief command to Joshua Fry, an able officer, while Washington was to hold the second.
Thirty cannon and eighty barrels of gunpowder had been received from the king of England, for the defense of western forts. All haste was now made to send for-
-
87
Hostilities Begun.
ward the forces in time to succor the little band who had gone before them, under Trent; but the heavy roads of spring and the Allegheny mountains, were barriers which bade defiance to speed; and, while these preparations were on foot, a heavy French force, under Contrecœur, glided down French Creek and the Alle- gheny river, arriving at the strategic spot on the 17th April.
Here he found the Virginians scarring the leaf-clad soil with the foundations for a fort. Trent had returned. east to hurry forward reinforcements, and ensign Ward stood in his place. The little band obeyed Contrecœur's. summons to leave, backed up as it was by nearly a thousand bayonets. The men gathered up their camp equipage, during which preparation for their retreat Ward took supper with the French commander, by special invitation. This over, the Virginians soon buried themselves in the Forest depths, taking their course up the banks of the Monongahela, and left the French masters of the situation. The latter immediately com- menced the erection of a fort, which they named Duquesne, in honor of the Governor of Canada.
Washington was now at the head of a small band of backwoodsmen, armed with axes, about to hew a path through the forest for the artillery to follow. The news of the surrender of Ward's company reached him at Wills Creek. Continuing to press forward, he reached Great Meadows, a place about fifty miles east of the new French fort at the fork, on the 27th of May.
A few miles west of this place, Mr. Gist had settled, the year before, with the intention of making it a per- manent home, and still maintained his position amidst the clamors of impending war. Hearing of the arrival of Washington, he visited his camp and gave him infor- mation of a body of French under Jumonville, stationed on the waters of Red Sandstone Creek, hard by.
Half-King, the still faithful old Iroquois chief, at the head of a few braves, also came and offered their ser- vices to Washington. He was now far advanced into the wilds, with the Allegheny mountains between him and any hope of reinforcements or subsistence, with an enemy four times outnumbering his force ready to attack him; but he hesitated not to commence the attack. Half-King led the way, and he surprised Jumonville, under cover of night, and took twenty-one prisoners
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Surrender of Fort Necessity.
after killing ten men, among whom was Jumonville himself. Washington lost one man killed.
As might be supposed, this opening of hostilities inflamed the resentment of the French to the last degree; as the first acts of positive hostilities always are made the most of, to tone up the vindictive spirit of the soldiery on both sides, in any impeding war. The French called the killing of Jumonville assassination.
Washington now held his advanced position, content- ing himself with watching the movements of the French, till the 28th of June. At this time, he was in Gist's house, and learning that a heavy French force were advancing against him, he commenced a retreat. Hav- ing reached Great Meadows, July Ist, in consequence of the scarcity of provisions, he concluded to intrench himself and await an attack. On the 3d, the advance of the French were seen at II o'clock a. m., nine hun- dred strong.
The positions of the assailants were quickly taken, and a destructive fire was opened upon Ft. Necessity (the name Washington had given his hastily-built stockade). The fire was returned with all the obstinate courage of backwoodsmen, but their besiegers were beyond its reach, and the only effeet it produced was to win the admiration of the foe.
At 8 o'clock in the evening, while a heavy rain was pouring down, the firing ceased, and a signal for a parley was sent to the beleaguered camp from De Villiers, the French commander. Many of Washing- ton's men were wounded and he was out of provisions. Surrender was therefore his only recourse left. The terms were generous and worthy the gallantry of a French captain .* Washington was allowed to depart with drums beating, with the honors of war, taking every- thing with them except the artillery. He was to give up the prisoners taken May 28th, and no more fortifications were to be erected west of the mountains. Captain Jacob Van Braum and Robert Stobo were to be given up to the French, as hostages to secure the fulfillment ment of the conditions. The campaign had miscarried and the French were now in heavy force on the head- waters of the Ohio.
*De Villiers, who was brother of the slain Jumonville, said that, on beholding the wretched condition of Washington's men, after so desperate a defence, pity disarmed his feelings of resentment.
89
Articles of Surrender.
The following is the English translation of the articles, as published by the French Government in the memoir justifying its Conduct.
In a publication of these articles made, in this country, from a copy retained by Washington, no such preamble or introduction appears; article first being the beginning.
In Washington's copy, at the end of the sixth article, the words "pendant une annee a Compter de ce jour," mean, "during one year, counting from this day," appear.
How these discrepancies arose, it would be useless now to inquire.
NOTE :- Capitulation granted by M.de Villiers, Captain and Commander of his Majesty's troops, to those English troops actually in Fort Necessity.
July the 3d, 1754, at 8 o'clock at night as our intentions have never been to trouble the peace and good harmony subsisting between the two Princes in Amity, but only to revenge the assassination committed on one of our officers, bearer of a Summon, as also on his Escort, and to hinder any establishment on the lands of the dominions of the King, my Master, upon these considerations, we are willing to show favor to all the English who are in the said fort, on the following conditions:
ARTICLE I.
We grant leave to the English Commander to retire with all his gar- rison, and to return peaceably into his own country; and promise to hinder his receiving any insult from us, French, and to restrain, as much as shall be in our power, the Indians that are with us.
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