Here he learned that a large force from Fort Duquesne was coming against him. He hastily threw up fortifications and called in all his forces, including several companies of Indians. A messenger was hastily despatched to Captain Mackay at Fort Necessity, thirteen miles away, and he came on with the swivel guns of the fort. A council of war soon decided that they could not hold their own at this place, and must retreat to more favorable grounds for a stand against the enemy. In the retreat that followed, the Virginians were greatly exasperated by the North Carolinians. Mackay’s men were “King’s soldiers” and so would not belittle themselves with the labors of the retreat. At Great Meadows, in the center of which was Fort Necessity, the Virginians, exhausted and resentful, refused to go any farther, and Washington decided to make his stand there. They had left Gist’s station none too soon. At dawn on the morning following the retreat, Captain de Villiers with five hundred Frenchmen and several hundred Indians surrounded the place. Finding that the English had escaped, they were about to return to Fort Duquesne, when a deserter from Washington’s camp arrived. He told them that he had escaped to keep from starving to death, and that the troops under Washington were in mutiny over their desperate situation. De Villiers set out at once to capture Fort Necessity. Meanwhile, Washington set the Virginians at work strengthening the defences of the fort. The Indians seeing such inferior equipment for defense, and the discord among the troops, became afraid and deserted. On the morning of July 3, 1754, the French arrived at the edge of Great Meadows and began firing from behind trees, at whatever they could see. All day Washington kept his men close sheltered in the trenches, keeping the enemy at rifle’s distance in the edge of the woods. At night a steady downpour of rain began, half drowning the men in the trenches and ruining their ammunition. At eight o’clock the French demanded a parley looking to the surrender of Fort Necessity. Washington at first refused, but their condition was hopeless. The only person with them who understood any French was Jacob Van Braam, the swordsmanship teacher of Washington at Mount Vernon. Van Braam went back and forth in the drenching storm of the black night, between the lines, with the negotiations. At last the French sent in their ultimatum. Van Braam tried to translate it by the light of a candle, under cover of a rude tent, through which the rain was pouring upon candle, paper and persons. The terms of the surrender were very humiliating and reflected severely on Washington’s honor, but according to Van Braam’s translation the terms, though hard, were acceptable.