George Washington | Page 6

retraced his steps and returned to Williamsburg.
Governor Dinwiddie, being much disappointed with the outcome of the expedition, urged the Virginian Legislature to equip another party sufficiently strong to be able to capture Fort Duquesne, and to confirm the British control of the Ohio. The Burgesses, however, pleaded economy, and refused to grant funds adequate to this purpose. Nevertheless, the Governor having equipped a small troop, under the command of Colonel Fry, with Washington as second, hurried it forth. During May and June they were near the Forks, and with the approach of danger, Washington's spirit and recklessness increased. In a slight skirmish, M. de Jumonville, the French commander, was killed. Fry died of disease and Washington took his place as commander. Perceiving that his own position was precarious, and expecting an attack by a large force of the enemy, he entrenched himself near Great Meadows in a hastily built fort, which he called Fort Necessity, and thought it possible to defend, even with his own small force, against five hundred French and Indians. He miscalculated, however. The enemy exceeded in numbers all his expectations. His own resources dwindled; and so he took the decision of a practical man and surrendered the fort, on condition that he and his men be allowed to march out with the honors of war. They returned to Virginia with little delay.
The Burgesses and the people of the State, though chagrined, did not take so gloomy a view of the collapse of the expedition as Washington himself did. His own depression equalled his previous exaltation. As he thought over the affairs of the past half-year in the quiet of Mount Vernon, the feeling which he had had from the start, that the expedition had not been properly planned, or directed, or re?nforced in men and supplies, was confirmed. Governor Dinwiddie's notion that raw volunteers would suffice to overcome trained soldiers had been proved a delusion. The inadequate pay and provisions of the officers irritated Washington, not only because they were insufficient, but also because they fell far short of those of the English regulars.
In his penetrating Biography of Washington, Senator Lodge regards his conduct of the campaign, which ended in the surrender of Great Meadows, and his narrative as revealing Washington as a "profoundly silent man." Carlyle, Senator Lodge says, who preached the doctrine of silence, brushed Washington aside as a "bloodless Cromwell," "failing utterly to see that he was the most supremely silent of the great men of action that the world can show." Let us admit the justice of the strictures on Carlyle, but let us ask whether Washington's letters at this time spring from a "silent" man. He writes with perfect openness to Governor Dinwiddie; complains of the military system under which the troops are paid and the campaign is managed; he repeatedly condemns the discrimination against the Virginian soldiers in favor of the British regulars; and he points out that instead of attempting to win the popularity of the Virginians, they are badly treated. Their rations are poor, and he reminds the Governor that a continuous diet of salt pork and water does not inspire enthusiasm in either the stomach or the spirit. No wonder that the officers talk of resigning. "For my own part I can answer, I have a constitution hardy enough to encounter and undergo the most severe trials, and, I flatter myself, resolution to face what any man durst, as shall be proved when it comes to the test, which I believe we are on the borders of." In several other passages from letters at this time, we come upon sentiments which indicate that Washington had at least a sufficiently high estimation of his own worth, and that his genius for silence had not yet curbed his tongue. There is the famous boast attributed to him by Horace Walpole. In a despatch which Washington sent back to the Governor after the little skirmish in which Jumonville was killed, Washington said: "'I heard the bullets whistle, and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound.' On hearing of this the King said sensibly, 'he would not say so if he had been used to hear many.'" This reply of George II deserves to be recorded if only because it is one of the few feeble witticisms credited to the Hanoverian Kings. Years afterward, Washington declared that he did not remember ever having referred to the charm of listening to whistling bullets. Perhaps he never said it; perhaps he forgot. He was only twenty-two at the time of the Great Meadows campaign. No doubt he was as well aware as was Governor Dinwiddie, and other Virginians, that he was the best equipped man on the expedition, experienced in actual fighting, and this, added to his qualifications as a woodsman,