The Life and Times of George Washington

By Samuel Smucker

The Pergamum Collection publishes books history has long forgotten. We transcribe books by hand that are now hard to find and out of print.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles River Editors
• Release date: Mar 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781629210476

Book preview

WASHINGTON.

CHAPTER I.

GENEALOGY OF THE WASHINGTON FAMILY—BIRTH OF GEORGE WASHINGTON—DEATH OF HIS FATHER—INFLUENCE OF HIS MOTHER—HIS EDUCATION—HIS EARLY PROMISE AND YOUTHFUL CHARACTERISTICS.

When William the Conqueror devastated the territory of England north of the Humber, for the purpose of punishing, the revolt of the Northumbrians, the estates of the vanquished became the spoils of his Norman followers, and the chief dignities in Church and State were conferred upon them. Durham, in which the bones of St. Cuthbert were entombed after their removal from the shrine of Holy Island, on Lindisfarne, became a city of great importance, and the see enjoyed privileges of an extraordinary character. The bishop appointed by the conqueror was invested with great power, as being more subservient to the purpose of William than were the proud and turbulent nobles of the period, and as creating a bulwark against the inroads of the Scots, whose incursions frequently assailed the border. The Bishop of Durham was created a Count Palatine, the see was erected into a palatinate, and temporal and spiritual authority was in a large degree conferred upon the bishops of this diocese. In those distant times, landed property was held by feudal tenure only; and abbots, bishops, lords, and barons, were obliged to furnish the king with military service. Whenever occasion rendered it necessary, and the banner of St. Cuthbert was unfurled, the feudatories of the prelate were required to take the field. William De Hertburn, whose surname was probably derived from the name of a village on the banks of Tees, called Hartburn, was one of the knights who held lands in the Palatinate of Durham. The first mention of this family occurs in 1183, at which period history declares that William De Hertburn exchanged Hertburn, his manor and village, for those of Wessyngton, and the family thenceforth took the name of De Wessyngton. Mention is made in 1264 of William Weshington, of Weshington, who assisted his sovereign in the unfortunate battle of Lewes; and in the reign of Edward III., the name of Sir Stephen De Wessyngton occurs in the list of gallant knights who tried their skill in arms in the tournament at Dunstable. Various members of this family were distinguished in the events which afterward transpired, and in many scenes of glory and chivalry in which the Douglasses and Percys were conspicuous. When Henry VIII. confiscated the monasteries, he conferred on Laurence Washington, who had been Mayor of Northampton, the manor of Sulgrave in 1538, which, with other lands, had belonged to the monastery of St. Andrews.

In 1646 Sir Henry Washington, a colonel in the royal army, displayed great gallantry in the defence of Worcester; and manifested a spirit of chivalry and heroic resistance which has transmitted his name with renown to posterity. The Sulgrave family had ever been the adherents of the Stuart dynasty. Among the emigrants to the New World who sought to escape the vengeance of Cromwell, which was excited against those who had attempted a general revolt, were John and Andrew Washington, great-grandsons of the grantee of Sulgrave, who landed in Virginia in 1657. The brothers purchased an extensive tract of land in Westmoreland County, between the rivers Potomac and Rappahannock. Near the place where Bridges Creek falls into the Potomac, John took up his abode, and married Miss Anne Pope. He became an extensive planter, a member of the House of Burgesses, and the leader of the Virginia forces against the Seneca Indians. His grandson Augustine was born in 1694, and was twice married. His first union was in 1715 to Jane Butler, of Westmoreland County, daughter of Caleb Butler. Four children were the fruit of this union, two of whom died in childhood. The survivors were Laurence and Augustine Washington, whose mother died in November, 1728. Augustine Washington married, in 1730, a beautiful young lady named Mary Ball. She bore him four eons and two daughters. The younger daughter, called Mildred, died in infancy; the other was named Elizabeth. The second son was called Samuel; his brothers were John Augustine, and Charles; and the eldest of the four was one whose name history loves to record, and which nations bless,—the father and founder of American freedom.

George Washington was born on Feb. 22d, 1732, on Bridges Creek, the old homestead of the family. His father, soon after his birth, removed to Stafford County. The house in which he resided was situated on an elevation; and a meadow near it, bordering on the Rappahannock, was the playground of the boy who was destined to bear such a conspicuous part in the history of his country.

Virginia, in those days, did not possess the advantages, in an educational point of view, which she afterward attained. The facilities for instruction were few, and the capabilities of teachers were of an humble character. To complete the education of their sons, the rich planters usually sent them to England; and this course was adopted frequently, in different parts of the land, till a much later date. While George was yet a child, Augustine Washington sent his eldest son Laurence to England to pursue his studies, considering him, at the age of fifteen, as the head of the family.

As soon as George was old enough, he was sent to the best school which the neighborhood afforded. It formed a striking contrast to the schools that have since grown up in the land; for it was of very little pretension, and presided over by one of his father’s tenants, whose name was Hobby, who, to the dignity of preceptor, added that of parish sexton. Reading, writing, arithemetic, and such elementary branches, were doubtless the amount of what young Washington was then taught. At the same time, it should be remembered that he reaped the advantages of mental and moral instruction from his father at home; and, as will afterward appear, from his excellent mother.

Laurence returned from England when George was seven or eight years of age. There existed- a very strong attachment between the brothers. Laurence viewed George as a remarkable specimen of rectitude and truth, and the boy won his affections and a claim to his protection; while, on the other hand, George looked up to his brother, with his manly and cultivated mind, as a fit model for imitation, and thus, at an early age, these sentiments of affection and admiration impressed their influence on his future sentiments.

The military ardor of his ancestors had an effect on the mind of Laurence Washington, and he gratified his military taste by joining the expedition of Admiral Vernon, commander-in-chief in the West Indies; for which he embarked in 1740, in his twenty-second year. He received a captain’s commission, and served with honor under Admiral Vernon and General Wentworth, in’ their joint expedition. He was present at the ineffectual attack on Carthagena; was distinguished there by his bravery; and was one of those who unflinchingly bore the enemy’s fire, while his party retired with a loss of six hundred killed and wounded. This event gave his brother such a bias toward a military life, that his very recreations were afterward of a martial character. His playmates he turned into soldiers, and with reviews, parades, and sham-fights, he thus became, at a tender age, a commander and a hero.

George Washington, at the age of eleven, was left after his father’s death in 1743, with the other children of the second marriage, under the guardianship of his mother, whose good sense, conscientiousness, and excellent qualities, exacted deference while inspiring affection, formed the mind and stamped indelibly the moral character of her son. Both by precept and by example she inculcated the lessons by which a warm temper, inherited from herself, was governed and directed; and by her the principles of his future conduct were founded on the most rigid justice and equity. It was her wont to call her children around her, and read from some favorite work of morality and religion. Then flowed from her lips the instructions which guided the future man, and which will affect the race for good till the latest posterity. Those who desire to know the basis of the moral character of Washington, will discover it by perusing Sir Matthew Kale’s Contemplations, Moral and Divine, the favorite manual of his mother; in which volume her name was written with her own hand, preserved by her son with religious care, and still deposited in the archives of Mount Vernon. Mary Washington inculcated those principles, and inspired those sentiments, by which her son was guided throughout life; which rendered him one of the best, as well as one of the greatest, of men.

Washington’s father being deceased, and Hobby’s course of learning no longer suited to his wants, George was sent to the school of Mr. Williams, at Bridges Creek, and resided with Augustine. His own purpose, and the object of his friends, were, to tit him for ordinary business life; he never made any attempt to acquire a knowledge of the classics; nor does he seem to have had any inclination for such studies as the learned languages, rhetoric, or the belles lettres; though, at a more recent period, he gave some attention to the French. His education was plain and eminently practical; and his manuscript school books which are yet preserved, display great neatness and correctness. In a book of arithmetic still remaining at Mount Vernon, is an attempt to portray forms and faces, probably those of his school-mates; but in other respects it presents a business-like appearance. One thing of infinite service to him in after-life, both in the management of his estate and at the head of armies, was his practical and lawyer-like acquaintance with business forms. All sorts of mercantile and legal papers, bills of exchange, bonds, notes of hand, and deeds, gave him skill in keeping accounts; and monuments of his diligence are yet to be seen in financial affairs posted up in books, with his own hand, and relating to all the transactions of his property, dealings with persons at home or abroad, and accounts with Government. He had the good sense to appreciate physical education, which, by means of the athletic exercises of running, wrestling, pitching bars and quoits, exerts more influence on the mind than is generally supposed, and tends greatly to produce the mens sana in sano corpore. In these exercises Washington took the lead among his young associates; and the muscles of his large and powerful frame had attained such development, at this early period, that tradition points out the place where, when still a boy, he cast a stone across the Rappahannock; and anecdotes yet attest his achievements as a horseman, in which he excelled, so as to be able to mount and manage the most ungovernable steed. These accomplishments, and the rigid principles of justice and impartial probity on which his conduct was regulated, in the most minute particulars, rendered him an umpire among his young associates, from whose decisions there was no appeal; and the type of the future man was visible in the fact that, as he was their chosen military chief at an earlier age, he had now became their young legislator. One thing in particular, at every period of his career, prominently characterized him; and that was his reverence for the Supreme Being, the acknowledgment of his control of human affairs, and of the superintending Providence that directs all sublunary events.

CHAPTER II.

LAURENCE WASHINGTON—THE FAIRFAX FAMILY—GEORGE WASHINGTON’S DESIRE FOR A MILITARY LIFE—HIS MOTHER WITHDRAWS HER CONSENT TO HIS ENTERING THE NAVY—RETURN TO SCHOOL, AND APPLICATION TO MATHEMATICS—HIS PROFICIENCY IN SURVEYING—FALLS IN LOVE, AND GROWS MELANCHOLY—HIS ASSOCIATION WITH THE FAIRFAX FAMILY, AND ITS BENEFICIAL EFFECTS—HUNTING COMPLETES THE CURE—HIS SURVEY OF LORD FAIRFAX’S DOMAINS—HIS APPOINTMENT AS PUBLIC SURVEYOR—THE PERILS OF THE WILDERNESS—THE BRACING EFFECTS OF HIS DUTIES, PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY—GREENWAY COURT—INFLUENCE OF HARDY TOIL AND GOOD SOCIETY COMBINED.

The affection of Laurence Washington for his brother was greatly augmented after the death of their father. Laurence had now become an important man in Virginia, a member of the House of Burgesses, and adjutant-general of the district. Through him, George became intimate with the family of William Fairfax, whose princely seat of Belvoir was situated near Mount Vernon, on the Potomac. William Fairfax was a liberally educated man of the world, and combined experience with abstract learning, having served with honor both in the East and West Indies, and aided in freeing New Providence, of which he was governor, from pirates. He had charge of the Virginia estates of his cousin, Lord Fairfax, during some years, and Belvoir was the place of his residence. Here, in the management of the large interests of Lord Fairfax, he lived in considerable style; and a family of sons and daughters of refined tastes and cultivated minds, rendered his residence yet more delightful. Intimacy with a family like this, who combined the refinement of European with the rural simplicity of colonial life, was of the utmost service to George Washington at this period; and to his pleasant intercourse with them, is due, in a great measure, that polish and perfect good-breeding which formed one of his prominent characteristics. A manuscript still remains, in his hand-writing, which evinces the desire generated in his mind at this period, to behave with propriety in their society; and shows clearly the superior degree of self-control to which he rendered himself subject. The code in question was called rules for behavior in company and conversation; and though containing some things of a trivial nature, is, on the whole, such as any youth might use and imitate with profit.

During the visits of George at Mount Vernon, the desire for a military life was enkindled in his mind by various circumstances; among which were his intercourse with his brother, who was then adjutant-general, and retained pleasing reminiscences of his old cruises, and the society of William Fairfax, a soldier who had witnessed many scenes of trial. Some of the companions-in-arms of Laurence were visitors at Mount Vernon, and their conversation frequently turned on military matters by sea and land. Occasionally, too, one of Vernon’s old ships anchored in the Potomac; and all these circumstances combined together made George desirous of entering the navy, to which he was encouraged by his brother and Mr. Fairfax. The navy then seemed the surest path of fame; but the difficulty was with Mrs. Washington. Her reluctant consent was at length obtained; a midshipman’s warrant was procured, and George was about to enter the service at the age of fourteen. It is said his luggage was already on board a man-of-war then at anchor below Mount Vernon; but his mother’s heart at last failed her, and, resolute as was her mind, she could not give up her son, the probable support of herself and the other children, to the perils of a seafaring life. Thus the scheme was abandoned. Instead of the sea, George returned to school, and during two years more applied himself to the study of mathematics, in those departments which are useful in a civil or military career. Land surveying was a branch in which he became an adept, and for which, by the most rigid application, he qualified himself in the highest degree. He kept regular field-books; surveyed the neighborhood; made accurate diagrams, and entered with the greatest precision the measurement of boundaries. He did everything in the most masterly manner; and he formed those habits of mind by which he was prepared for every emergency, and which rendered him equal to the most complicated difficulties and perilous undertakings. Amid documents which evince such close and rigid application, one in his own hand-writing was afterward found, which shows that at the age of fifteen he was not proof against the arrows of Cupid, but actually became smitten with the charms of some unknown beauty. This circumstance rendered him unhappy, perhaps for the reason that he was toe diffident to push his suit a characteristic which he displayed in later years in female society. An old lady whom he used to visit when they were both young, said: He was a bashful young man; I used often to wish he would talk more. Washington left school in the autumn of 1747, and went to Mount Vernon, where the image of the fair one still followed him; and, in his mathematical studies and surveying exercises, his spirits were yet affected with tender recollections. His sorrows were at last poured forth in verse, in which he mournfully speaks of his poor restless heart, wounded by Cupid’s dart.

Washington was a favorite of William Fairfax, the cousin of Lord Thomas Fairfax, for whose estates he was agent. This nobleman was a great friend of George, and, in a measure, the founder of his future fortunes. At this period he was sixty years of age, had been educated at the University of Oxford, and was there distinguished. He had made a figure in London society; had held a commission in the Blues; and had gained additional credit to his connections and title by contributing some papers to Addison’s Spectator. He then launched into fashionable life; loved a beautiful young lady, who accepted his addresses; and, after purchasing her wedding dresses, broke her engagement and married a duke. Lord Fairfax, stung with mortified pride and wounded affection, avoided the sex ever afterward, except such as were connected with him; and visited his estates in Virginia in 1739. These had descended to him from his mother, daughter of Thomas, Lord Culpepper, who obtained a grant of them from Charles II, which included the lands between the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers. Finding the Potomac had its source in the Allegheny Mountains, his lordship claimed a commensurate enlargement of his grant; and matters being compromised, his domains extended into the Allegheny Mountains, and included a large portion of the Shenandoah Valley. The mildness of the climate and the noble forest scenery, the abundance of the game, and the frank cordiality of the Virginians, won upon Lord Fairfax, who made his abode with them; and, though eccentric, he was amiable in character and generous in temper. George William Fairfax, son of his lordship, educated in England, and afterward married to a daughter of Colonel Carey, on James River, was now, in his twenty-second year, on a visit to Belvoir, with his bride and her sister.

In such a scene Washington felt that female society produced a soothing effect upon his melancholy; and the charms of Miss Carey made an impression on his heart, which yet preserved the traces of his original passion for the lowland beauty. He was then, at the age of sixteen, tall, athletic, and well calculated to inspire regard; and all this was enhanced by the soft melancholy depicted in his countenance. The confession made by him at the time to several confidants, prove that the sorrow arid gloom of his former passion had been almost charmed away by the graces of the sister-in-law of Fairfax. The object of his first love is not certainly known. She is said to have been a Miss Grimes, of Westmoreland County, afterwards Mrs. Lee, mother of General Henry Lee, who became a favorite of Washington, as is supposed, from the tenderness once entertained for his mother. That which chiefly contributed to heal the wounds of disappointed affection in the breast of Washington, was the fox-hunting Lord Fairfax; whose society and influence, resulting from his having chosen him as the companion of his hunting excursions, gradually engrossed his attention and divided his thoughts. He took Washington into special favor. They rode together; and, under the tuition of his lordship, the youth acquired that zest for the chase for which he afterward became remarkable. His lordship had a fine stud of horses, and excellent hounds. An important result of the fox-hunting was the discovery by his lordship of the excellent qualities of Washington, his courage and capacity for enduring fatigue, as well as the modest self-restraint by which he was characterized. He had seen the accuracy and neatness with which his surveys were executed at Mount Vernon. Lord Fairfax now required a surveyor of his domains beyond the Blue Ridge, which squatters had taken possession of, and of which a regular survey had never been made. It was his earnest desire to have these lands examined, and apportioned into lots by a systematic measurement, in order to effect the ejectment of the squatters, or reduce them to terms of moderation. He made, therefore, an offer to Washington to undertake this important task, and the proposal was accepted. It was just what he desired; and after a few simple preparations were made, a short time was sufficient to fit the active youth for his first expedition amid the perils of the wilderness.

While the rigors of winter still prevailed in the mountains, and the lower parts of the landscape were becoming enlivened by the milder influence of spring, in the month of March, 1748, having completed his sixteenth year, Washington, accompanied by George William Fairfax, set out on his expedition. Their road lay by Ashley’s Gap, a path through the Blue Ridge. At a place where it is about twenty-five miles wide, they entered the valley of the Shenandoah, bounded on the one side by the Blue Ridge, and on the other by the North Mountain, a branch of the Alleghenies. A beautiful and copious river, bearing the same name as the valley, flows through it, appropriately called by the Indians the daughter of the stars. The travellers first halted at what Washington calls his lordship’s quarters, a lodge in the wilderness, near the present town of Winchester, and in a region of great beauty, crowned with stately trees and a noble maple grove, on the banks of the Shenandoah. He viewed the spot not with a poetical, hut a business eye; the realities of life had started up in his path, and romance had forever vanished.

Washington describes in. his journal the qualities of the soil, and makes a faithful record of the different localities as presented to his view, and their relative value. The habits of observation which he had so sedulously cultivated were now of the utmost importance to him, and he had become an adept in his art. Where the town of Winchester now stands, they lodged for a night. Civilization had scarcely reached this place at that early day. The company lay before the fire after supper, but Washington was shown to a bedroom. Having retired, he soon missed the clean sheets of Mount Vernon; and on a straw-matted couch he was so annoyed by insects beneath the threadbare blanket, that he was glad to dress again, and join the company at the fire. The survey began near the confluence of the Shenandoah with the Potomac, and was continued for a distance along the banks of the former, where the hand of industry had made some clearings, and had produced crops of grain, hemp, and tobacco. The Potomac was then swollen with rains, and could not be passed. Having to remain a few days until the waters should subside, they meanwhile made a visit to a mountain spring, since known as Sulphur Springs. The location of their star-lit camp was what is now called Bath, one of the favorite watering-places of Virginia. Lord Fairfax, at a later date, used the waters of one of these, which still goes by his name. Soon afterward they crossed the river, in a canoe, to the Maryland side, their horses swimming over; and after a ride of forty miles over an execrable path, they halted at the house of Colonel Cresap, and remained for the night. Inclement weather yet detained them. A party of thirty Indians, carrying a scalp, appeared. They had a war-dance; a fire was made in a space in the centre of the circle; an orator delivered an exciting speech, and several Indian scenes were acted amid yells, whoops, and grotesque grimaces. Washington made notes of this strange exhibition, and his keen observation enabled him to form a just estimate of savage character, which rendered him capable of dealing with the wild natives of the forest. The next encampment was made after recrossing the river, at the mouth of Patterson’s Creek, which was effected as before. They had now spent two weeks in Frederick County, in the wild mountains on the south of the Potomac, where lands were surveyed and laid out, and wild turkeys and game furnished their whole subsistence. The wind blew down their tent at one time; the smoke expelled them from it at another; and while each one was his own cook, and their dishes were of the most primitive description, they were often drenched with rain; and a companion once saved Washington from the fire which was burning the straw on which he was reposing.

As the survey progressed, many squatters were anxious to obtain a cheap title to the land upon which they had settled. Many Germans who had emigrated thither with their wives and families, and could not understand English, followed them; and at the house of Solomon Hodge, a justice of the peace, they had an amusing diversion from the camp life to which they had become accustomed. At his table they had only such knives as the guests brought with them. Washington describes himself as having been out all day, and laying on the straw or a bearskin before the fire, with man, wife, and children, like dogs and cats; and happy is he who gets the berth nearest the fire."

The survey being completed, he returned to Mount Vernon on the 12th of April, from the southern branch of the Potomac, crossed the mountains, the Shenandoah Valley, and the Blue Ridge, and received for his services, when actively employed, a doubloon a day. Lord Fairfax was well satisfied with the manner in which Washington executed this important undertaking; and soon afterward laid out a manor of ten thousand acres in the spot on the other side of the Blue Ridge, called his quarters. This place, which he named Greenway Court, included within its limits arable land, noble forests, and fertile meadows.

It is probable that the influence of Lord Fairfax obtained for Washington the post of public surveyor, which gave his labors superior authority, so as to entitle them to be recorded in the county offices. This occupation was lucrative, for at that time the number of public surveyors was very few; and the knowledge acquired in this occupation for a term of three years, enabled Washington to make advantageous purchases in future.

During his employment as public surveyor, Washington was a frequent guest at Greenway Court. The projected manor never was erected; but a one-storied building, with dormer windows, two wooden belfries, and a sloping roof in the antique Virginia fashion, with a verandah which "extended the whole length of the house, was constructed on a green knoll embowered in trees. The noble proprietor never slept in the main building, but in a wooden house about twelve feet square. In a small structure he had his offices, and there all his business was transacted. A long train of black and white servants, stables for horses, and kennels for hounds, and a plentiful table in the English style, proclaimed the opulence of the owner; while a crowd of Indians, half-breeds, and loiterers, who freely partook of the good things the kitchen afforded, was an excellent comment on the hospitality and abundance of Lord Fairfax’s establishment.

Greenway Court has fallen to decay, and in a magnificent county of great beauty, it is crumbling to the earth; but in those days Washington perused in its library the History of England and the pages of The Spectator. His expanding mind reaped instruction from the man of literary talents and cultivated tastes, while his fondness for the chase was gratified, in the proper seasons, with his congenial friend and patron, Lord Fairfax. Washington had now spent three or four years beyond the Blue Ridge, occasionally visiting his brother at Mount Vernon. The toil and privations to which he had been exposed, his expeditions amid the rude inhabitants of the wilderness, and his occasional intercourse with his brother and the Fairfax family, had the effect of accustoming his mind to endurance, and softening his manners to courtliness, by which he attained the rare faculty of blending together the graceful suavity of the gentleman, with the martial powers of a hero.

CHAPTER III.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH DISPUTES RESPECTING THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO—GROUNDS OF THEIR SEVERAL CLAIMS—THE OHIO COMPANY—LAURENCE WASHINGTON—HIS LIBERAL POLICY—FRENCH COMPETITION—DE BIENVILLE—HIS PLANS—CHRISTOPHER GIST, THE PIONEER—HIS EXPEDITION TO THE FRONTIER, AND OPERATIONS WITH THE INDIAN TRIBES—HIS NEGOTIATIONS, AND THEIR SUCCESS—HIS RETURN—THE ATTEMPT OF IONCAIRE—HIS ILL SUCCESS AT LOG-TOWN, AND LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA—THE INDIAN TERRITORIES.

While Washington was surveying in the wilderness, and acquiring mental strength and ampler experience, those events were in course of preparation which exerted a powerful influence on his subsequent destiny; and the secret counsels were elaborated in the workshops of diplomacy, which ultimately produced important results. To understand this assertion, it is necessary to remember that the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, by which the general war in Europe was terminated, left the boundaries between the British and French possessions in America undefined; and, as a natural consequence, both nations laid claim to the same immense tracts of territory, and each hastened to anticipate the other in obtaining possession of them.

The Ohio Valley, west of the Allegheny Mountains, was remarkable for its fertility, its fine hunting and fishing grounds, its healthful climate, and its great resources and facilities for inland commerce; and it became the chief bone of contention. The French claimed that they had a right to the territory in consequence of its discovery by Padre Marquette and his comrade, Joliet of Quebec, in 1673; these persons having sailed down the Mississippi as far as Arkansas; and arrogating for their sovereign not only the river, but the lands lying adjacent and its tributary streams. The English claimed the disputed territory by virtue of an Indian conquest, by which the Iroquois or Six Nations held the lands conquered by their ancestors; which lands, for a consideration of four hundred pounds, they afterward sold, by a bargain made at Lancaster in 1744, between Commissioners from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, and their own chiefs. This purchase included all their right and title from the west of the Allegheny to the Mississippi River. The truth was, that the Indians who made this treaty were neither in possession of the ceded territory at the time, nor were they sober when they made the alleged transfer. For these reasons France and England eventually commenced hostilities; and a contest was begun by which France lost all her American possessions, and England the greater part of them.

At this period the inhabitants of the colony of Pennsylvania held a monopoly of the trade with the western Indian races, exchanging peltry, trinkets, powder, shot, rum, and blankets, for valuable furs. No white settlement as yet existed there, and the French had but a nominal authority over tribes of mixed Iroquois, Delawares, Shawnees, and Mingoes, who had migrated from