Frostburg mining journal., 1883-09-29

ests, whence they rarely returned but
i'll skeleton bands, that were haggard
with care, or detected by defeat.
Though the arts of peace were un-
known to this fatal region, its forests
were alive with men; its shades and
glens rang with martial music, and
the echoes of its mountains threw
back the ,augh, or repeated the wan
ton cry, of many gallant and reck-
less youth, as he hurried by them, in
the noontide of his spirits, to slumber
in a long night of forgetfulness.
1t was in this scene of strife and
bloodshed that the incidents we shall
attemptto relate occurred, during the
third year Of the war which England
and France last waged for the possess
sion of country that neither was des-
tined to retain.
The imbecility Of her military lead
ers abroad, and the fatal want of
energy in her councils at home, had
lowered the character of Great Brit
ain from the proud elevation on which
it had been placed, by the talents
and enterprise of her former warriors
and statesmen. No longer dreaded
by her enemies, her servants were
fast losing their self-confdence.
In the mortifying abasement, the
colonists, though innocent of her i'm
becility, and too humble to be the
agents of her blunders, were but the
natural participators. They had re-
Gently seen chosen army from that
country, which, reverencing as a
mother, they had blindly believed
invincible-an army led by a chief
who had been selected from a crowd
of trained warriors, for his rare mill
tary endowments, disgracefully rout-
ed by a handful of French and Indians,
and only saved from annihilation by
the coolness and spirit of Il Virginian
boy, whose ripper fame has since diff
fused itself, with the steady influence
Of moral truth, to the uttermost con-
fines of Christendom.* A wide 'front.'
ier had been laid naked by this un-
expected disaster, and more substan-
tial evils were preceded by thous-
and fanciful and imaginary dangers.
The alarmed colonists believed that
the yells of the savages mingled with
every fitful gust of wind that issued
from the interminable forests of the
west. The terrific character of their
merciless enemies increased immeas-
urably the natural horrors of war
fare. Numberless recent massacres
were still vivid in their recollections;
nor was there any ear in the provinces
so deaf as not to have drunk in with
avidity the narrative of some fearful
tale Of midnight murder, in which
the natives of the forest were the
principal and barbarous actors. AS
the credulous and excited traveller
related the hazardous chances of the
wilderness, the blood of the timid
curdled with terror, and mothers
cast anxious glances even at those
children which slumbered within the
security of the largest towns. In
short, the magnifying influence of
fear began to set at naught the cal
culations Of reason, and to render
those who should have remembered
their manhood, the slaves of the
basest of passions. Even the most
confident and the stoutest hearts
began to think the issue of the con-
test was becoming doubtful; and
that abiect class was hourly increas-
ing in numbers, who thought they
foresaw all the possessions of the
English crown in America subdued
by their Christian foes, or laid waste
by their relentless allies.
When, therefore, intelligence was
! received at the fort which covered
the southern termination of the port
age between the Hudson and the
lakes that Montcalm had been seen
moving up the Champlain with an
army numerous as the leaves on the
trees" its truth was admitted with
more of the craven reluctance of fear
than the stern joy that a warrior
should feel, in finding an enemy
*Washington; who, after uselessly admon-
ishing the European general of the danger
into whithile was heedlessly running, saved
the remnants of the British army, on this oc-
cason, by his decision and courage. The rep
utation earned by Washington in this battle
was the principal cause Of his being selected
to command the American armies at a later
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