The Siege and Capture of Louisburg: Speaker and Washington

Washington had anxiously desired to be in the advance. He was now sent forward to Loyal Hanna, where he was placed at the head of a brigade composed of a thousand provincials, and ordered to move in front of the army. But it was November before General Forbes, with the artillery and main body, reached that point, and full fifty miles of rugged way lay between the army and Fort Du Quesne. A council of war was held, when it was decided that the lateness of the season made it prudent to defer the attack upon Fort Du Quesne until another season. Fortunately Washington, just at that time, heard of the desertion of the French by their Indian allies, and the weakness of the garrison at Fort Du Quesne. He obtained permission to push on with his brigade. The main army followed. The provincials, inspired with the zeal of their young leader, overcame every obstacle with alacrity, and very soon they stood upon a hill overlooking the object of their destination. The garrison, only five hundred in number, alarmed at their approach, set fire to the fort that night and fled down the Ohio in boats by the light of the conflagration. The ruins were entered the next day (November 25, 1758), and over the charred remains the British standard was unfurled. In honor of the great English stateman, the name of Fort Pitt was given to Fort Du Quesne, and the little village that soon grew around it was called Pittsburgh. Two Virginia regiments were left there as a garrison, and the main army returned to the borders of civilization. The great object of the war in the middle colonies was accomplished. The basin of the Ohio was secured to the English.

Washington marched the remainder of his troops to Williamsburgh, where he took leave of them with the intention of quitting military life. He had been elected a member of the Virginia Assembly, and was affianced to the charming widow of Daniel Parke Custis, who was about his own age--twenty-six years. They were wedded at the "White-House," the residence of the bride, on the 17th of January (6th, Old Style), 1759, by the Rev. David Mossom, for forty years rector of St. Peter's Church, New Kent, near by. Then Washington took his seat in the Assembly at Williamsburg; and at about the close of their honey-moon, the Speaker of the House, by its order, rising from his chair, thanked the young colonel in the name of Virginia for his public services. Washington, surprised, arose to reply, but could not summon words. His face flushed with confusion, when the Speaker relieved him by saying: "Sit down, Colonel Washington; your modesty is equal to your valor, and that surpasses the power of any language I possess." That Speaker was Mr. Robinson, father of Beverly Robinson of New York, at whose house Washington met Mary Phillipse about ten years before.

With the expulsion of the French from Fort Du Quesne, the campaign of 1759 was ended. It had been a successful one for the English. They had captured three of the most important of the French posts--Louisburg, Frontenac, and Fort Du Quesne. The faith of the Indians in the invincibility of the French was eclipsed; and at a great council held at Easton, on the Delaware, in the autumn of 1758, several powerful tribes were present, and joined the Six Nations in making treaties of friendship and neutrality with the English. The right arm of French power was thus paralyzed, and peace was secured to the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia. The people of Canada were discouraged. Their resources were almost exhausted, and they cried for peace. Montcalm wrote to Vaudreuil: "I am not discouraged, nor are my troops; we are resolved to find our graves under the ruins of the colony."

The final struggle for dominion in America was now at hand. Pitt had studied the geography of North America with diligence, and based his plans upon its teachings. Encouraged by the results of the campaign in 1758, in America and in Europe (where the victorious Frederick the Great of Russia, who had opened the Seven Years War on the continent in 1756, was the ally of the English), Pitt conceived a magnificent scheme for conquering all Canada, and crushing French power in America forever. That dominion was now confined to the region of the St. Lawrence, for the settlements in the West and South were cut off from co-operation with the Canadians.

Pitt had the rare good fortune to possess the confidence of all parties at home and in the colonies. The English people were dazzled by his real greatness; the colonists were deeply impressed by his justice. He had promptly reimbursed all the expenses of the last campaign incurred by the colonial assemblies, amounting to about a million dollars, and they as promptly seconded his scheme of conquest, which had been communicated to them under an oath of secrecy. Whatever he asked for he obtained. When he asked for sixty million dollars, and an immense force for service on sea and land in 1759, in Europe and America, the parliament almost unanimously granted his request. "He declares only what they would have them do, and they do it," wrote Chesterfield.