Part 10

Nor, in looking back over the greater war and my life in office, have I had reason to complain of want of affection from those whose esteem I desired to retain. Many times in my life I have, however, had just cause to complain of things said of me by those who possessed my regard, but I have in all such cases felt it better not to sacrifice a friendship on account of ill temper or the indiscretion of the hour, and am made happy in the belief that I have thus been able to keep what I would not willingly have lost. Where men have been needed in the service or in office, I have been still more desirous of forgiving words or actions which affected me alone, but which did not in the end destroy their usefulness. Nor have I myself been without need to be thus considered, for at times I am by nature irritable and short of temper. Lawrence once said to me that he found it more easy to forgive his enemies than his friends; but this I did not clearly see, and, after all, if a man is resolved to keep himself from thinking of what is said against him, the memory of it soon becomes dulled and there is less need of forgiveness.

Among the many evidences of esteem I had before the Braddock affair was a letter from Captain Peyronney, now recovered of his wound, but to die bravely on the Monongahela. He must have heard that I had been ill spoken of by Major Muse and perhaps by others. He wrote very odd English, but I could hardly find fault with his meaning.

SIR: I Shan’t make Bold to Describe the proceedings of the House [of Burgesses], which no doute you have had already Some hint of. I only will make use of these three expressions: _furtim venerunt_; _invane Sederunt_; and _perturbate Redierunt_.

But all that is matere of indifference to the wirginia Regiment Collo. Washington will still Remain att the head of it, and I spect with more esplendor than ever; for (as I hope) notwithstanding we will Be on the British stabichment, we shall be augmented to Six houndred and by those means entitle you to the Name not only of protector of your Contry But to that of the flower of the wirginians, By the powers you’ll have in your hands to prove it So.

Many enquired to me about Muses Braveries; poor Body I h’d pity him ha’nt he had the weakness to Confes his coardies him self, and the impudence to taxe all the reste of the oficiers withoud exception of the same imperfection, for he said to many of the Consulars and Burgeses that he was Bad But th’ the reste was as Bad as he:――

To speak francly had I been in town at that time I cou’nt help’d to make use of my horse’s wheap for to vindicate the injury of that villain.

he Contrived his Business so that several ask me if it was true that he had challeng’d you to fight: my answer was no other But that he should rather chuse to go to hell thand doing of it, for had he had such thing declar’d: that was his Sure Road――

I have made my particular Business to tray if any had some Bad intention against you here Below: But thank God I meet allowais with a goad wish for you from evry mouth each one entertining such Caracter of you as I have the honnour to do my Self who am the Most humble

And Obediant of your Servants

_Le Chevalier de Peyronney_.

I had much cause to feel grateful for such friends, and I may here add that, as concerns Van Braam, I had his censure reversed when I myself became a member of the House of Burgesses.

As soon as possible after bringing my affairs into order, I set out, determined to lose no chance to perfect my military education.

At Fredericktown I met the general, and on May 10 was announced in general orders as aide, with brevet rank of captain. I rode thence in advance to Winchester, where I had need to send a servant to borrow fresh horses from my friend Lord Fairfax, who himself came later from Greenway Court to meet me and rode with me about one hundred miles to Wills Creek, near to which was Fort Cumberland, so named for the captain-general.

On the last day of our ride, as we rode on over, I do believe, the most abominable roads in the world, I described to his lordship the array of well-drilled men, sailors, artillery, etc., I had seen at Alexandria, landed from Admiral Keppel’s fleet, and said, if I remember, that it was a great advantage to serve under a gentleman of General Braddock’s abilities and experience, and that as to any danger from the enemy, I considered it as trifling, for I believed the French would be obliged to exert their utmost strength to repel the attacks about to be made on their forts at Niagara and Crown Point.

XXXI

As I talked, Lord Fairfax, who had seen greater armies, heard me in silence, and indeed, when I ceased, remained for a time without making any comment. Then he reined up his horse, and, handing me two letters, said: “I have kept these for your private reading, George; I have them through the kindness of one of Admiral Keppel’s officers.” I read them as we rode on, well in the rear, to avoid the annoyance caused by the marching of the Forty-eighth Foot, which beat up a great dust. He said: “Read them again at your leisure.” I did as was desired, and, as they happened to be left in my buckskin-coat pocket and forgot, they were the only papers I chanced to save in the battle. They are now before me, and I read them anew with interest. Not for many years have I seen them.

MY DEAR LORD: I take this occasion to write you. London is very gay, and the clubs and their wits amazing merry over the appointment of Edward Braddock to command the force sent out to protect you from the Indians. Ch. S――――y was here for dinner yesterday. He said General B. was a stranger both to fear and common sense, and that his best fitness to fight Indians was that he was providentially bald. Lord C. S. says he saw Anne Bellamy, the actress, whom the General visited when on the point of leaving London. She said Mr. Braddock was melancholy, and declared he was sent with a handful of men to conquer nations and to cut his way through an unknown wilderness.

He said: “We are sent like sacrifices to the altar.” That ancient ram! say I. He told her she would never see him again.

I wish you luck of your new General. He is touchy, punctilious, of a stiff mind, and has had forty years in the Guards. I do not think he was eager to leave Anne Bellamy and the clubs, for the man is a favourite; but he has little money, and it will be at least agreeable to spend the king’s guineas.

If you were a woman I should tell you the new fashions. The beaux now carry their watches in their muffs, and the women are taking, more and more, to what Charles S――――y calls undress uniform, so that soon Madame Eve will be the fashionable maker of gowns!――but I must not nourish your provincial blushes. Lord R. tells me that your General is a sad brute, for when his sister――a pretty thing she was――spent all her money at cards and hanged herself, the man said: “Poor Fanny, I always thought she would play till she would be forced to tuck herself up.” Horace Walpole says, when she meant to die, she wrote with a diamond on the window-pane this out of Garth’s “Dispensary”:

“To die is landing on some silent shore, Where billows never break nor tempests roar.”

But why should the woman die when she had a diamond left to gamble with?

However, the Duke of Cumberland is his patron, and that is enough. F――――x lost the other night at White’s, they say, £1000 and――

I looked up and said: “The rest does not seem to be of interest or to say more of the general.”

“No, but always look at the postscript of a lady’s letter. There is more about your general.”

It was true, for I read:

P. S. I meant not to tell you of Braddock’s affair with Colonel Gumley, who was his friend, but I may as well, even if you think it incredible. A letter is a fine way to talk, because you can never see the blush you may cause, and may fib without being vexed by contradiction until so long after that you have forgotten all about it. But what a pother I am making about my harmless gossip!

When Braddock quarrelled over cards with his friend, and swords were drawn, Gumley (you know, Lord Pulteney married his sister) cried out: “Braddock, you are a penniless dog. If you kill me you have no money, and you will have to run away.” So with that he tossed him his purse. Braddock was in such a rage that Gumley easily disarmed him, but he would not ask his life.

As we rode on I said it seemed to me to show that our general was foolishly obstinate, and that I liked the other man better, but neither very much.

His lordship said: “Yes, yes; it is a wild and a silly life. The woman is heartless, but what she says may serve to put you on your guard. These people think London the only part of the world worth a thought. The other letter is of more moment. It is from Colonel Conway. I have inked over these names; they do not matter. He is of another clay.”

_London._

MY DEAR LORD: My nephew, Mr. Henry Wilton, carries this letter to you, and any kind attention you may feel disposed to pay him will oblige me.

I think the choice of Braddock unfortunate. He is a brave, or rather a reckless, man, overconfident, arrogant, and sure to despise his enemy, and goes out, as I am assured, with a bad opinion of the Colonials. Horace Walpole, who knows, as we all do, the mad life Braddock has led in London, says: “He is a very Iroquois in disposition, and so, I suppose, fit to fight his kind.” Horace is making himself merry over the appointment, and the Colonial helping he is to have. But it is the fashion here to laugh at Colonials, and not for the world would Horace be out of the fashion. I wish the General may have good fortune, but I fear the matching of drill and pipe-clay against the wiles of the woods; as sensible would it be to set a fencing-master with a rapier to fight a tiger in a jungle. When I consider how vast is this increasing number of English in a country where must be great prospects and a fine sense of independency, I wonder how little they are regarded here. But it is our way to despise other nations, and even our own blood if it has had enterprise to cross the seas. Come back and help us to learn better.

Always your Lordship’s

Ob’d’t hum’le serv’t.

_Henry Conway._

His lordship looked at me as I put away the letters. I said: “That seems to me good sense; but about the general, I cannot credit it.”

“You will judge for yourself,” he said, “if this be the man to send into the wilderness. Keep the letters, but do not lose them; you may return them later.” Which I should have done, only that the rout on the Monongahela put it out of my mind.

XXXII

It was about noon when, as I have said, being in the rear of the Forty-eighth Foot, we heard a noise behind us. We drew up at the side within the wood to see what was coming.

Amid a great dust came General Braddock, in a fine red chariot bought of Governor Sharpe, with an escort of light horse, all in great haste, and bumping over the worst road possible. Presently they flew by the troops, who saluted, the drums beating the Grenadier’s March, a tune I was to hear again.

“If I were the general,” I said, “I should have preferred a horse to a coach.”

“Not if you were he,” said his lordship.

“But the man is not a fool,” I ventured to say. “He seemed to me not to want for intelligence.”

“An intelligent fool, George, is the worst fool. His intelligence feeds his folly.”

This, like much else that his lordship said to me, was not so plain as it would be now, and, accordingly, I made no reply.

After being silent for a time, his lordship went on to say that I should do well to talk little, and quietly to observe things for myself; that he himself knew General Braddock to be a spendthrift, obstinate as a pig, and very self-confident; and, finally, that I knew what a lot of drilled regulars would be worth in the woods. He feared also that the officers were quite unfit for the service.

As it was the way of his lordship to mock at most things, it did not affect me as much as what I saw and heard later, for, unfortunately, he was not alone in his opinion concerning the general.

By and by, the general having preceded us by an hour, we heard the salute of seventeen guns, fired as he entered the camp.

We came in sight of the tents about Wills Creek early in the afternoon, and were walking our horses, very tired, man and beast, when a gentleman came towards us. He was mounted on a rather uneasy animal, and I saw, as he met us and we bowed, that his girth was loose and he in danger of a fall. I dismounted and, with an apology, set it right. He thanked me and got off his horse, saying, as was plain to see, that he was no horseman and would walk, preferring two certain legs to four uncertain ones. On this his lordship also dismounted, and, our servants taking the horses, we walked on together. But first his lordship said: “I am Lord Fairfax, and this is my friend, Colonel George Washington. May we have the honour to know your name?”

He replied, “I am Benjamin Franklin,” and asked if this were Colonel Washington who had been in command in the Jumonville affair. I said I had had that good fortune, and after this he turned to his lordship, and, they conversing, I was able to observe the looks and ways of Mr. Franklin, who was now the Postmaster-General and known throughout the colonies as a learned man, and in affairs very competent. I was to be deeply engaged with him in the future.

He was at this time a vigorous man of forty-nine years, with a great head and a kindly look, clad very simply in a gray suit. When he began to talk I envied him the ease and exactness with which he expressed himself, and the prudence he showed in speech, of which quality his lordship had little.

When at last the Postmaster-General learned that I was to serve as a volunteer aide, he smiled and remarked that that was to manufacture glory for others and not even to get pay. To this I replied that I considered my ends were clear enough to me, for that I was, as it were, an apprentice, and was bent to acquire experience in war under one who knew the business. He said he hoped I should not be disappointed, and at this I saw his lordship smile; and so no more of moment passed between us, for we met Captain Orme and Sir John St. Clair, and were soon in the camp.

Here was our most western fort. It lay very well, what there was of it finished, just where Wills Creek falls into the Potomac.

I went, with Captain Orme guiding me, to headquarters at the fort to report, passing a few Indians and squads of ill-clad Virginians whom an officer, one Ensign Allen, was cursing and trying to drill into regulars.

Everybody was out of temper for one reason or another. Sir John could get neither waggons nor flour, and the Indian squaws were making mischief because of the unchecked license of the younger officers.

Having reported, I was received very agreeably by the general and his aides, and he would have me to dine with him that day. At four in the afternoon――for the general kept very fashionable hours――we sat down in a great room in the fort, and as he told us his cooks could make a good ragout out of old boots, we were served with a great variety of dishes, and in fine state.

The general had Lord Fairfax on his right and Mr. Franklin on his left, and I was fortunate to find myself beside a very courteous gentleman just come to the fort, Mr. Richard Peters, secretary of Governor Morris of Pennsylvania. I engaged this gentleman in talk concerning the proprietary government and the Quakers, and their unwillingness to be taxed for defence, until, the wine being freely used and then punch more than enough, men’s tongues were loosed. There were toasts to the King and the governor, and at last I heard the general’s voice raised.

He said: “Your health, Mr. Peters, and when do you set out to cut that road for my troops? You are long about it.” Mr. Peters said quietly: “When, sir, I get guards against the Indians for the wood-cutters; until then it will not be possible.”

The general damned Pennsylvania and the Quakers, and said: “That colony must find guards for their own wood-cutters, and as to the Indians, his Majesty’s regulars laugh at the idea of danger from them.” Upon which, several officers, not very sober, cried out, “Hear, hear!”

Mr. Peters, who had taken very little wine, replied that they were not to be despised, meaning the savages, but that every step of the march would be at risk of ambuscades.

Then, to my amazement, General Braddock cried out that he despised such counsels and that the colonials were like old women.

On this Mr. Peters rose, and one or two other gentlemen, and I saw Mr. Franklin glance at him. As he hesitated, I said so that he alone could hear: “Pardon me, Mr. Peters, the man is drunk, and you are entirely right.” Then I saw that his lordship spoke quickly to the general, who cried out: “My apologies, Mr. Peters, and a glass with you. We have had too many vinous counsellors. You shall have your guards”――as indeed he did, but not until my lord had been very urgent, and also Mr. Franklin. Mr. Peters, very grave, bowed and sat down. When shortly his lordship went away, I made my own excuses and followed him.

The next day I happened to be in his lordship’s quarters and Mr. Franklin present, when General Braddock called to pay his respects to Lord Fairfax. We rose to go out, but his lordship detained us. The general was in high spirits. He said to Mr. Franklin: “Only let the colonies keep their promise and all will be well.”

I confess I was unprepared for the confidence with which he assured Mr. Franklin that he would take Duquesne and go on to Niagara and Frontenac, and that the fort would be an affair of a day or two.

“But, sir,” said Mr. Franklin, “you must march through a narrow road in pathless, dense forests, and your line will be some four miles long. You will, I hope, take Duquesne, but you will be, I fear, in constant danger of being cut in two, for the French and Indians are dexterous in ambuscades, and to send back relief quickly, if attacked, will be nigh to impossible with woods all about you. As to the waggons we talked of, I will get you all the waggons you want out of Pennsylvania, and shall set out for Lancaster at once.”

The general thanked him, but said he must remind Mr. Franklin that he talked as a civilian, and that, although these savages might be formidable to raw American militia, they would make no impression on disciplined troops, and much more to like effect.

Mr. Franklin replied quietly: “I am conscious, sir, of the impropriety of arguing such matters with a military man, but I should like to ask Colonel Washington his opinion. He has had some experience in the irregular warfare of our woods.”

His lordship, desirous, as I learned later, that I should not contradict my superiour, said: “I beg to answer for Mr. Washington that I am sure General Braddock will, as time serves, consult such colonial officers as have seen service on the frontier.”

After other talk the general rose, and said he should be sure to take his lordship’s advice.

XXXIII

When alone with us the Postmaster-General talked with even greater seriousness, saying that in Philadelphia, so secure were they of the success of the campaign, that a gentleman, a Dr. Bond I think it was, proposed to raise money for an illumination to be ready when the news of victory came. Mr. Franklin told us that he had begged him to take warning from a verse in the Old Testament as to before battle and after, and this much pleased his lordship, who laughed and said, “Well put, sir”; but when I asked what the verse was, they both laughed and bade me read my Bible, and, indeed, I am none the wiser up to this day.

It was not alone the general who was discontented. On arriving at Wills Creek I found this letter from George Croghan, one of the most important traders on the frontier, and with a commission from Pennsylvania to make roads and secure waggons and Indian allies.

DEAR COLONEL: If the rest are like Sir John St. Clair, I shall be glad to be shut of the business. He swore at us for delay and said “no soldier should handle an axe, but by fire and sword he would force the inhabitants to do the work; we should be treated as traitors, and that when the General came he would give us ten bad words for one that he had given.” You, Sir, know well how hard it is to stir up our border folks and what a task to get from farmers in the spring their waggons and horses. We are doing our best. I have secured Captain Jack――a guide hard to beat.

There was more of it, and enough to afford serious thought.

During our stay I heard nothing but complaints of our want of efficiency, and no one seemed to see that it was silly to expect to find everything at hand in a land as new as ours. Captain Orme and Ensign Allen complained on one occasion to Dr. Mercer and me that our men were languid, spiritless, and unsoldier-like. Dr. Mercer, who was a hot-headed Scotchman, said he had seen undisciplined Highlanders put to rout regulars at Prestonpans and Falkirk, and that in the woods our men would beat the best grenadiers in the King’s army. Orme grew angry and said Mercer was a damned rebel; but I succeeded in quieting them, although I insisted that Captain Orme would in time change his opinion, as indeed happened. Mercer was in a constant rage and told me over and over that the officers were insolent and that the general was ill with the disease called damned foolishness. I thought him imprudent and begged him to be careful; but as he had served in ’45 with the Pretender, and come over here after his flight, he was, on that account, in bad odour with the regular officers, and, I feared, also with the general, who had been with the Duke of Cumberland upon the final bloody defeat of the rebels at Culloden. Dr. Mercer had just cause to complain, but I thought him unwise to talk so freely. He was, nevertheless, a gallant gentleman, and died a general, falling gloriously at Princeton when rallying his men.