Meadows, capturing the entire party save one, and killing the leader. Washington had but a feeble force, to which the French in the neighborhood were vastly superior. Anxiously but vainly waiting for reinforcements, he was finally obliged to retire, without coming to a decisive engagement, to Fort Necessity, at the Great Meadows, which he labored to fortify. But on the 4th of July he was obliged, after nine hours of conflict with a greatly superior force, to yield to the French, who permitted him to march out with the honors of war.

Governor Hamilton convened the Assembly on the 6th of August in special session in consequence of Washington's defeat; and money was freely voted as before, but with the same abortive result.

Though the French in America were greatly inferior in numbers to the English, yet they had the immediate advantage of being directed by one governing power, which enabled them to concentrate all their resources at any point desired. This advantage had been foreseen by the English Government, and already, with a view to a central power, had the Ministry recommended a uniform system of taxation, - which finally became the bone of contention between the mother country and her Colonies, and had ordered a conference of representatives of the Provinces with the chiefs of the Six Nations at Albany, to concert measures of defence. This council convened on the 19th of June, 1754, the first general Congress of the Colonies in America. Governor Hamilton, unable himself to attend, commissioned John Penn and Richard Peters of the Council, and Isaac Norris and Benjamin Franklin of the Assembly. The Indians were lukewarm. Indeed, they had shown themselves a treacherous people, inclined to the stronger side. A plan of government for the Colonies, prepared by Franklin-who had previously meditated the subject and had brought his notes with him - was, on the 10th of July, adopted substantially as submitted. It provided for a president-general to be appointed by the Crown, and a council of forty-eight members to be chosen by the Colonial Assemblies. It was provided that the first meeting

should be held at Philadelphia, which place, it was believed, members from New Hampshire even might reach in ten or fifteen days. "The fate of this constitution," says the biographer of Franklin, "was singular. It was disapproved of by the Ministry of Great Britain because it gave too much power to the representatives of the people; and it was rejected by every Assembly as giving to the president-general, the representative of the Crown, an influence greater than appeared to them proper in a plan of government intended for freemen." *

Early in 1753 Governor Hamilton had given notice to the Proprietors that in twelve months from its reception he would resign his commission. He was led to this step by the disagreeable relations which the royal and Proprietary instructions forced him to hold towards the Assembly. Induced to keep his instructions secret by the conviction that their divulgence would tend to exasperate the people, he was obliged to assign various pretexts for refusing his assent to many necessary acts of legislation, which pretexts were recognized as frivolous and indefensible by the Assembly, well calculated to alienate that body, and to place the Governor before it in a false and damaging position.

ROBERT HUNTER MORRIS, Deputy Governor, October, 1754, to August, 1756.-In October, 1754, Governor Hamilton was relieved by Robert Hunter Morris. The old dispute between Governor and Assembly over the money bill was early renewed, his first official act being the rejection of one for forty thousand pounds. Great Britain had at this time determined to press resistance to the French energetically, and Pennsylvania was called on to furnish three thousand recruits, subsistence, camp equipage, and transportation. Unable to secure an appropriation of money, by reason of the Proprietary instructions, the Assembly showed its desire to promptly second the purposes of the Crown by resolving to borrow five thou

* Life of Franklin, p. 118.

sand pounds on its own credit for the support of the troops.

Early in March, General Braddock, with two regiments of the line, arrived from Cork, Ireland, at Alexandria, Virginia, whence he marched to Frederick, Maryland. Here the haughty General found that no means of transportation had been provided, nor could any be obtained. Franklin, who had been sent to Braddock by the Assembly of Pennsylvania, not in its own name, but to represent the Colonial cause as Postmaster-General-an office which he then held-indicated to him that the line of march should have been through Pennsylvania, where the supplies needed were abundant. Whereupon Braddock commissioned him on liberal terms to procure one hundred and fifty wagons and fifteen hundred pack-horses. Returning immediately to Pennsylvania, he circulated notices through the counties of Cumberland, York, and Lancaster as he went, offering good prices and immunity from impressment, which he represented as imminent, and in a few days had all the wagons he desired and a good number of horses. His wants in this particular being supplied, Braddock commenced his advance, with entire confidence of complete success. After brushing aside the slight resistance which he might meet at Fort Du Quesne, and leaving a garrison there, he would move rapidly upon Forts Niagara and Frontignac, having no suspicion of the possibility of a repulse. Possessed of the ideas of soldiering in a long-settled country, with broad, solid highways on which to move his trains, he little realized the obstacles he was to meet in fighting savages in the wilderness. Finding only Indian trails, he stopped to cut away the forests, build bridges, and construct roads, treating with contempt the advice of Washington to push rapidly forward with pack-horses. By the time he had reached the Monongahela, the French, who had been regularly advised of his movements, had had ample time to gather in reinforcements, and fire the spirits of the Indians for the conflict. On the morning of July 9th, 1755, when within seven miles of Fort Du Quesne, and while

marching confidently on, the front and left flank of the column was suddenly assailed by an invisible foe. Momentary confusion ensued; but soon rallying, the troops moved in good order, the officers evincing admirable discipline and courage. But every tree concealed a foe, from which an unerring fire was delivered with deadly effect. Sir Peter Halkett, the second in command, was killed, Braddock mortally wounded, and every mounted officer save Washington killed or wounded. Washington had two horses killed under him, and four bullets through his coat, but still kept his horse; and after seeing sixty-four out of eighty-five of the officers, and half the privates, killed or wounded, withdrew with the remnant of the forces, losing artillery and stores, even to the private cabinet of the commander, which contained his instructions.

The defeat of Braddock left the frontier unprotected, and struck the defenceless settlers with terror. The Assembly immediately voted fifty thousand pounds to the King's use for affording protection; but Governor Morris returned it without his approval, because it provided for taxing the property of the Proprietors, as other estates, and from this decision no argument could move him. In their remonstrance against his decision the Assembly said: "We entreat him to reflect with what reluctance a people born and bred in freedom, and accustomed to equitable laws, must undergo the weight of this uncommon tax, and even expose their persons for the defence of his estate, who, by virtue of his power only, and without the color of right, should refuse to bear the least share of the burden, though to receive so great a benefit. With what spirit can they exert themselves in his cause, who will not pay the smallest part of their grievous expenses? How odious must it be to a sensible, manly people to find him, who ought to be their father and protector, taking advantage of public calamity and distress, and their tenderness for their bleeding country, to force down their throats laws of imposition abhorrent to common justice and common reason!"

Expeditions undertaken against the French in Nova Scotia, and at Crown Point, were more successful, and in a measure atoned for the failure of that under Braddock. To defray the expenses of these northern operations, the Assembly voted fifteen thousand pounds in bills to be drawn on the trustees of the loan office. The Proprietors, having intelligence of the defeat of Braddock, also contributed five thousand pounds; and a money bill, with a provision for the organization of a volunteer militia, was passed.

The French at Du Quesne expected that operations against them would be renewed. But no sooner did they find that the campaign had been abandoned, and that a long line of settlements lay all unprotected before them, inviting attack and easy conquest, than they lit the torch of devastation, and the whoop of the savage and the death-shriek of the powerless inhabitant was heard by mountain and stream along all the frontier. The most appalling outrages were committed, and the settlers were driven in until the enemy, advancing through Cumberland County, had reached the Susquehanna, where the main body established themselves, about thirty miles above Harris' Ferry, and whence wandering bands were sent out in all directions. Even the Shawanese and Delaware Indians, who from the first had been clamorous to take up arms on the side of the English, seeing the French victorious, and being encouraged by the latter to strike for the recovery of the lands which they had sold, following the inclination of their naturally blood-thirsty disposition, raised the hatchet against the English. In the beginning of the year 1755, it was estimated that there were three thousand men capable of bearing arms west of the Susquehanna. A twelvemonth later, and there were not a hundred.

To check these devastations, a chain of forts and blockhouses was erected along the line of the Kittatinny Hills, from the Delaware river to the Maryland line, at an expense to the Province of eighty-five thousand pounds. To encourage the formation of volunteer militia companies, Franklin published and circulated a dialogue, answering the objections to