%85. Braddock's Defeat, July 9, 1755.%--Braddock took command of this last expedition and made Washington one of his aids. For a while he found it impossible to move his army, for in Virginia horses and wagons were very scarce, and without them he could not carry his baggage or drag his cannon. At last Benjamin Franklin, then deputy postmaster-general of the colonies, persuaded the farmers of Pennsylvania, who had plenty, to rent the wagons and horses to the general. All this took time, so that it was June before the army left Fort Cumberland and literally began to cut its way through the woods to Fort Duquesne. The march was slow, but all went well till the troops had crossed the Monongahela River and were but eight miles from the fort, when suddenly the advance guard came face to face with an army of Indians and French. The Indians and French instantly hid in the bushes and behind trees, and poured an incessant fire into the ranks of the British. They, too, would gladly have fought in Indian fashion. But Braddock thought this cowardly and would not allow them to get behind trees, so they stood huddled in groups, a fine mark for the Indians, till so many were killed that a retreat had to be ordered. Then they fled, and had it not been for Washington and his Virginians, who covered their flight, they would probably have been killed to a man.[1] [Footnote 1: Read Parkman's _Montcalm and Wolfe_, Vol. I., Chap. 7, pp. 162-187; T.J. Chapman's _The French in the Allegheny Valley_, pp. 60-72; Sargeant's _History of Braddock's Expedition_.] Braddock was wounded just as the retreat began, and died a few days later. %86. The Other Expeditions.%--The expedition against Niagara was a failure. The officer in command did not take his army further than Oswego on Lake Ontario. The expedition against Crown Point was partially successful, and a stubborn battle was fought and a victory won over the French on the shores of that beautiful sheet of water which the English ever after called Lake George in honor of the King. %87. War declared.%--Up to this time all the fighting had been done along the frontier in America. But in May, 1756, Great Britain formally declared war against France. The French at once sent over Montcalm,[1] the very ablest Frenchman that ever commanded on this continent, and there followed two years of warfare disastrous to the British. Montcalm took and burned Oswego, won over the Indians to the cause of France, and was about to send a strong fleet to attack New England, when, toward the end of 1757, William Pitt was made virtually (though not in name) Prime Minister of England. [Footnote 1: Read Parkman's _Montcalm and Wolfe_, Vol. I., pp. 318-380.] William Pitt was one of the greatest Englishmen that ever lived. He could see exactly what to do, and he could pick out exactly the right man to do it. No wonder, then, that as soon as he came into power the British began to gain victories.