The leader-enterprise. [volume] (Fitzgerald, Ga.) 1912-1915, 1913-04-11


lays, and having been bred no soldier
or frontiersman, but merchant and
a man Of business, would have had
Washington's recruiting despatched
! at once, like a bill of goods, and a
new force sent hot-foot to the Ohio
again to catch the French while they
were at ease over their victory and
slackly upon their guard at Duquesne
Dlnwlddle BIunders Again.
When he was fatty told it was i'm
possible, he turned to other plans
equally ill considered, though no
doubt equally well meant. By Octo
Der he had obtained of the assembly
twenty thousand pounds, and from
the government at home ten thousand
more in good specie, such as was
scarce in the colony-for the sharp
stir Of actual fighting had had its eff
feet alike upon king and burgesses-
and had ordered the formation and
equipment of ten full companies for
the frontier.
But the new orders contained sad
civilian blunder. The ten companies
should all be independent companies;
there should be no officer higher than
captain amongst them. This, the
good Scotsman thought, would accom-
modate all disputes about rank and
precedence, such as had come near
to making trouble between Washing
ton and Captain Mackay, of the indie
pendent company from South Caro-
lima, while they waited for the French
at Great Meadows.
Washington at once resigned, in
dignant to be so dealt with. Not
only would he be reduced to a
captaincy under such an arrangement,
but every petty officer would outrank
him who could show the kings COM
mission.
1t was no tradition of his class to
submit to degradation of rank thus
by indirection and without fault com
mitted, and his pride and sense Of per
sonal dignity, for all he was so young,
were as high-strung as any mans in
! Virginia.
He had shown his quality in such
matters already, six months ago,
while he lay in camp in the wilder
I ness on his way towards the Ohio.
| The burgesses had appointed com
mittee of their own to spend the
money they had voted to put his ex-
petition afoot in the spring, lest Din
widdie should think, were they to give
him the spending of it, that they had
relented in the matter of the fees;
and these gentlemen, in their careful
parsimony, had cut the officers of the
such pay and food as Washington
deemed unworthy of gentleman's ac-
ceptance.
A Volunteer Without Pay.
He would not resign his commits
sion there at the head of his men
upon the march, but he asked to be
considered a volunteer without pay,
that he might be quit of the humilia-
ton of being stinted like a beggar.
Now that it was autumn, however
and wars stood still, he could resign
without reproach, and he did SO very
promptly, in spite of protests and
earnest solicitations from many quar-
ters. Il am concerned to find Colone
Washington's conduct so imprudent,
wrote Thomas Penn. But the high
spirited young officer deemed it nc
imprudence to insist upon a just con
sideration of his rank and services
and quietly withdrew to Mount Yer
non, to go thence to his mother al
the FERRY farm" upon the Rappahan
mock, and see again all the fields and
friends he loved so well.
A Brief Respite.
1t was a very brief respite.
He had been scarcely five months
out of harness when he found himself
again in camp, his plans and hopes
once more turned towards the far
wilderness where the French lay.
He had set great war ablaze
that day he led his forty men
into the thicket and bade them
fire upon M. Jumonyille and his
scouts lurking there; and he
could not, loving the deep business
as he d1Q, keep nlmSell dlool llolh II
when he saw how it was to be fin
ished.
Horace Walpole might laugh lightly
at the affair but French and English
statesmen alike-even Newcastle,
England's prime minister, as busy
about nothing as an old woman, and
as thoroughly ignorant of affairs as
a young man-knew that something
must be done, politics hanging at so
doubtful a balance between them, now
that Frederick of Prussia had driven
France, Austria and Russia into
league against him. The French min
lister in London and the British minis
ter in Paris vowed their governments
still loved and trusted one another,
and there was no declaration of war.
But in the spring of 1855 eighteen
French ships of war put to sea from
Brest and Rochefort, carrying six bat
talions and a new governor to Canada,
and as many ships got away under
press of sail from English ports to in
tercept and destroy them.