A History of the British Army, Vol. 2: First Part—to the Close of the Seven Years' WarFortescue, J. W. (John William), Sir
History
A History of the British Army, Vol. 2: First Part—to the Close of the Seven Years' War
Fortescue, J. W. (John William), Sir
Great Britain -- History, Military; Great Britain. Army -- History
The troops landed, trained
cannon on the unfinished stockade, and summoned the British to
surrender. Resistance was hopeless. The backwoodsmen perforce
yielded; and the French having demolished their works erected a
much larger and better fort on the same site, and called it Fort
Duquêsne. The name before long was to be altered to Pittsburg, but
the change was as yet hidden behind the veil of years. For the
present the French had stolen a march on the British, and Dinwiddie
was chagrined to the heart. "If the Assembly had voted the money
in November which they did in February," he wrote, "the fort would
have been built and garrisoned before the French approached."
The Governor, however, was by no means disposed meekly to accept
this defeat. The French had expelled a British party from British
territory by force of arms, and both he and Washington treated the
incident as equivalent to a declaration of war. Washington, though
but half of his troops had yet joined him, presently advanced over
the Alleghanies to the Youghiogany, a tributary of the Monongahela;
and there on the 27th of May he came upon a small party of French
and fired the shots which began the war. A few weeks later he
with his little force, something less than four hundred men, was
surrounded by twice that number of Frenchmen, and after a fight of
nine hours and the loss of a fourth of his men, was compelled to
capitulate.
Dinwiddie was vexed beyond measure by this second reverse, and by
the delay in the arrival of the reinforcements which had caused it.
The two companies of regular troops from New York came crawling
up to the scene of action in a disgraceful state. Their ranks
were thin, for their muster-rolls had been falsified by means
of "faggots"; they were undisciplined; they had neither tents,
blankets, knapsacks, nor ammunition with them, nothing, in fact,
but their arms and thirty women and children.[251] The troops
from North Carolina were still worse than these in the matter of
discipline, so much so that they mutinied and dispersed to their
homes while yet on the march to the rendezvous. The peril was
great; yet the colonies remained supine. The Assembly of Virginia
only after a bitter struggle granted Dinwiddie a competent sum;
that of Pennsylvania, being composed chiefly of Quakers and of
German settlers, who were anxious only to live in peace and
to cultivate their farms, refused practically to contribute a
farthing. New York was unable to understand, until Washington had
been actually defeated, that there had been any French encroachment
on British territory; Maryland produced a contribution only after
long delay; and New Jersey, safely ensconced behind the shelter
of her neighbours, flatly declined to give any aid whatever.
New England alone, led as usual by Massachusetts, showed not
only willingness but alacrity to drive back the detested French.
United action was as yet inconceivable by the colonists or, as the
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