At the beginning of July, Braddock began his march at the head of two thousand men. Having reached the Little Meadows, which are about twenty miles beyond Fort Cumberland, at Will’s Creek, he found it necessary to leave the greatest part of his heavy baggage at that place, under Colonel Dunbar, with orders to follow, as he should find it practicable; himself, with about twelve hundred men and ten pieces of artillery, advanced and encamped on the 8th, within ten miles of Fort Duquesne. He was warned against ambuscades and sudden attacks from the Indians: as if it were a point of discipline to be only prepared against surprises by despising them, he treated the notice as American panics, and advanced, with the tranquillity of a march in Flanders, into the heart of a country where every little art of barbarous war was still in practice. Entering on the 9th into a hollow vale, between two thick woods, a sudden and invisible fire put his men into confusion; they fired disorderly and at random against an enemy whom they did not see, and with so little command of themselves, that the greater part of the officers fell by the shot of their own men, who, having given one discharge, retreated precipitately. In vain were they attempted to be rallied by their officers, who behaved like heroes, and by Braddock, who, finding his generalship exerted too late, pushed his valour to desperation; he had five horses killed under him, and fell. Of sixty officers, near thirty perished; as many were wounded. Three hundred men were left on the field. The General was brought off by thirty English, bribed to that service by Captain Orme, his Aide-de-camp, for a guinea and a bottle of rum a-piece. He lived four days, a witness to the effects of his own rashness and to his erroneous opinion of the American troops, who alone had stood their ground. He dictated an encomium on his officers, and expired. In one respect it was a singular battle, even in that country; there was no scalping, no torture of prisoners, no pursuit; our men never descried above fifty enemies. The cannon was fetched off by the garrison of Fort Duquesne; and among the spoil were found the Duke’s instructions to Braddock, which the French published as a confirmation of our hostile designs. Colonel Dunbar hurried back in great precipitation with the heavier artillery on the first alarm from the fugitives. What a picture was this skirmish of the vicissitude of human affairs! What hosts had Cortez and a handful of Spaniards thrown into dismay, and butchered, by the novel explosion of a few guns! Here was a regular European army confounded, dispersed by a slight band of those despised Americans, who had learned to turn those very fire-arms against their conquerors and instructors!