fidelity and judgement, that he received the heartiest thanks of the governor and council for the very important services he had done his country. He was now (in the 20th year of his age) appointed major and adjutant general of the Virginia forces. Soon after this, the Indians continuing their encroachments, orders were given by the English government for the colonies to arm and unite in one confederacy. Virginia took the lead, and raised a regiment of four hundred men, at the head of which she placed her darling WASHINGTON. With this handful of brave fellows, Col. WASHINGTON, not yet 23 years of age, boldly pushed out into the Indian country, and there for considerable time, Hannibal like, maintained the war against three times the number of French and Indians. At the RedStones he came up with a strong party of the enemy whom he engaged and effectually defeated, after having killed and taken 31 men. From his prisoners he obtained undoubted intelligence, that the French forces on the Ohio consisted of upwards of a thousand regulars and many hundreds of Indians. But, notwithstanding this disheartening advice,he still pressed on uudauntedly agninst the enemy, and at a place called the Little Meadows, built a fort, which he called Fort necessity. Here he waited, hourly and anxiously looking for succours from New-York and Pennsylvania; but he looked in vain. Nobody came to his assistance. Not long after this his small force, now reduced to three hundred men, were attacked by an army of 1100 French and Indians. Never did the true Virginian valour shine more gloriously than on this trying occasion. To see three hundred young fellows, commanded by a smooth faced boy, all unaccustomed to the terrors of war, far from home, and from all hopes of help shut up in a dreary wilderness, and surrounded by four times their number of savage foes; and yet, without sign of fear, without thought of surrender, preparing for mortal combat. Oh! it was a noble sight! 16 Scarcely since the days of Leonidas and his three hundred deathless Spartians had the sun beheld its equal. With hideous whoops and yells the enemy came on like a host of tigers. The woods and rocks and tall tree tops (as the Indians climbing to the tops of the trees, poured down their bullets into the fort) were in one continued blaze and crash of fire-arms. Nor were our young warriors idle, but animated by their gallant chief, plied their rifles with such spirit that their liitle fort resembled a volcano in full blast, roaring and discharging thick sheets of liquid fire and of leaden deaths among their foes. For three glorious hours, salamander like, enveloped in smoke and flame they sustained the attack of the enemy's whole force and laid two hundred of them dead on the spot! Discouraged by such desperate resistance, the French general, the Count de Villiers, sent in a flag to WASHINGTON, extolling his gallantry to the skies, and offering him the most honorable terms. It was stipulated that Col. WASHINGTON and his little band of heroes, should march away with all the honors of war, and carry with them their military stores and baggage. In the spring of 1755 WASHINGTON, while buised in the highest military operations, was summoned to attend Gen Braddock, who in the month of February, had arrived at Alexandria with 2000 British troops. The assembly of Virginia appointed 800 provincials to join him. The object of this army was to march through the country, by the way of Will's Creek, to fort Duquesne (now Pittsburgh, or fort Pitt.) As no person was so well acquainted with the frontier country as Washington, and none stood so high in military fame, it was thought he would be infinttely serviceable to Gen. Braddock. At the request of the governor and council he cheerfully quitted his own command, to act as volunteer aid-de-camp to that very imprudent and unfortunate general. The army near 3000 strong, marched from Alexandria and proceeded unmolested within a few miles of fort Pitt. On the morning of the 9th of July, when they had arrived within seven miles of fort Duquesne, the pro vincial scouts discovered a large party of French and Indians lying in ambush. Washington, with his usual modesty, observed to Gen. Braddock what sort of an enemy he had now to deal with. An enemy who would not, like the Europeans, come forward to a fair contest in the field, but concealed behind rocks and trees, carry on a deadly warfare with their rifles. He concluded with begging that Gen. Braddock would grant him the honour to let him place himself at the head of the Virginia riflemen, and fight them in their own way. And it was generally thought that our young hero and his 800 hearts of hickory, would very easily have beaten them too, for they were not superior to the force, which, with only 300, he had handled so roughly a twelve month before. But Gen. Braddock, who had all along treated the Amer ican officers and soldiers with infinite contempt, in stead of following this truly salutary advice, swelled and reddened with most unmanly rage. "High times by G-d" he exclaimed, strutting to and fro, with arms a kimbo, "High times! when a young bnckskin can teach a British General how to fight!" Washington withdrew, biting his lip with grief and Indignation, to think what numbers of brave fellows would draw short breath that day, through the pride and obstinacy of one epauletted fool. The troops were ordered to form and advance in columns through the woods!! In a little time the ruin which Washington had predicted ensued, This poor devoted army, pushed on by their mad-cap general, fell into the fatal snare which was laid for them. All at once a thousand rifles began the work of death. The ground was instantly covered with the dying and the dead. The British troops, thus slaughtered by hundreds, and by an enemy whom they could not see, were thrown irrecoverably into panic and confusion, and in a few minutes their haughty general, with 1200 of his brave but unfortunate countrymen, bit the ground, Poor Braddock closed the tradgedy with great decency. He was mortally wouded in the begining of the action, and Washington had him placed in a cart ready for retreat. Close on the left, were the weight of the French and Indian fire principally fell, Washington and his Virginia riflemen dressed in blue, sustained the shock. At every discharge of their rifles the wounded general cried out, "O my brave Virginia blues! Would to God I could live to reward you for such gallantry." But he dled. Washington buried him in the road, and to save him from discovery and the scalping knife, ordered the wagons on their retreat to drive over his grave! O God! what is man? Even a thing of nought!! Amidst all this fearful consternation and carnage, amidst all the uproar and horrors of a rout, rendered still more dreadful by the groans of the dying, the screams of the wounded, the piercing shrieks of the women, and the yells of the furious assaulting savages, Washington, calm and self-collected rallied his faithful riflemen, led them on to the charge, killed numbers of the enemy who were rushing on with tomahawks, checked their pursuit and brought off the shattered remains of the British army. With respect to our beloved Washington, we cannot but mention here two extraordinary speeches that were uttered about him at this time, and which; as things have turned out, look a good deal like prophecies. A famous Indian warrior who assisted in the defeat of Braddock, was often heard to swear, that "Washington was not born to be killed by a bullet, for," continued he "I had 17 fair fires at him with my rifle, and after all I could not bring him to the ground." And, indeed, whoever considers that a good rifle levelled by a proper marksman, hardly evey misses its aim, will readily enough conclude with this unlettered savage, that some invissible hand must have turned aside his bullets. The Rev. Mr. Davis, in a sermon accasioned by Gen. Braddock's defeat, has these remarkable words; "I beg leave to point the attention of the public to that heroic youth, Col. George Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has preserved for some great service to his country." CHAPTER VIII. ADVENTURES OF CAPT. DANIEL BOON, COMPRISING AN AC- WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. "IT was on the first of May, 1769, that I resigned my domestic happines, and left my family and peaceable habitation on the Yadkin river in North Carolina to wander through the wildernes of America, in quest of the country of Kentucky, in company with John Finley, John Stuart, Joseph Holden, James Monay and William Cool. "On the 7th June, after travelling in a western direction, we found ourselves on Red river, where John Finley had formerly been trading with the Indians, and from the top of an eminence saw with pleasure the beautiful level of Kentucky. For some time we had experienced the most uncomfortable weather. We now encamped, made a shelter to defend us from the inclement season, and began to hunt and reconnoitre the country. We found abundance of wild beasts in this vast forest. The buffaloes were more numerous than cattle on their settle ments, browsing on the leaves of the cane, or crossing the herbage on these extensive plains. We saw hundreds in a drove, and the numbers about the salt springs were amazing. In this forest, the habitation of beasts of every American kind, we hunted with great success until December. "On the 22d December John Stuart and I had a pleasing ramble; but fortune changed the day at the |