All the energies of Washington’s little band were brought into requisition in throwing up breastworks. Appropriately he called the ramparts Fort Necessity.[30] At eleven o’clock in the morning of the 3d of July, the French and Indians, who are variously estimated at from nine to fifteen hundred, commenced the attack. Nature seemed in sympathy with the woes of man. It was a tempestuous day. The shrieks of the storm resounded through the forest, and the rain fell in torrents. And yet, far away in the solitudes beyond the Alleghanies, Frenchmen and Englishmen were all the day long killing each other, to decide the question, who should be permitted, of the human family, to rear their homes in these boundless wilds. The history of our fallen world teaches us, that the folly of man is equal to his depravity. God made this for a happy world. Man, in rebellion against his Maker, has filled it with weeping eyes and bleeding hearts. The fratricidal strife continued until eight o’clock in the evening. Captain Vanbraam, the only one in the fort who understood French, was then sent, with a flag of truce, into the camp of the assailants to ask for terms upon which the English might capitulate. He soon returned, bringing articles “which by a flickering candle in the dripping quarters of his commander, he translated to Washington; and, as it proved, from intention or ignorance mistranslated.” In these terms, which Washington accepted, and which it is said his courier did not correctly translate, the death of Jumonville is spoken of as an “assassination.”[31] Washington, as we have mentioned, was a young man of ingenuous character and winning manners. He was in all respects a gentleman of dignified deportment, of firm moral principles, and of the highest sense of honor. Fortunately he fell into the hands of M. De Villiers, a French officer, who was also a gentleman, capable of admiring the character of his captive, and of sympathizing with him in the terrible embarrassments into which he had been plunged. He treated Washington with magnanimity worthy of all praise. The terms of surrender were generous. The troops were to leave the fort with the honors of war, and were to return to their homes unmolested. They were to retain their small-arms, ammunition, and personal effects, surrendering their artillery, which indeed they had no means of moving, as their horses were all shot. They gave their word of honor not to attempt any buildings in the valley of the Ohio, for the space of one year. And they promised that all the French taken in the attack upon Jumonville, and who had been sent to Virginia, should be immediately restored.