rginians, exhausted by fatigue, hunger, and
vexation, declared they would carry the baggage and drag the swivels
no further. Contrary to his original intentions, therefore, Washington
determined to halt here for the present, and fortify, sending off
expresses to hasten supplies and reinforcements from Wills' Creek,
where he had reason to believe that two independent companies from New
York were by this time arrived.

The retreat to the Great Meadows had not been in the least too
precipitate. Captain de Villiers, a brother-in-law of Jumonville, had
actually sallied forth from Fort Duquesne at the head of upwards of
five hundred French, and several hundred Indians, eager to avenge the
death of his relative. Arriving about dawn of day at Gist's
plantation, he surrounded the works which Washington had hastily
thrown up there, and fired into them. Finding them deserted, he
concluded that those of whom he came in search had made good their
retreat to the settlements, and it was too late to pursue them. He was
on the point of returning to Fort Duquesne, when a deserter arrived,
who gave word that Washington had come to a halt in the Great Meadows,
where his troops were in a starving condition. De Villiers ordered the
fellow into confinement; to be rewarded if his words proved true,
otherwise to be hanged. He then pushed forward for the Great Meadows.

In the meantime Washington had exerted himself to enlarge and
strengthen Fort Necessity, nothing of which had been done by Captain
Mackay and his men, while encamped there. The fort was about a hundred
feet square, protected by trenches and palisades. It stood on the
margin of a small stream, nearly in the centre of the Great Meadows,
which is a grassy plain, perfectly level, surrounded by wooded hills
of a moderate height, and at that place about two hundred and fifty
yards wide. Washington asked no assistance from the South Carolina
troops, but set to work with his Virginians, animating them by word
and example; sharing in the labor of felling trees, hewing off the
branches, and rolling up the trunks to form a breastwork.

At this critical juncture he was deserted by his Indian allies. They
were disheartened at the scanty preparations for defence against a
superior force, and offended at being subjected to military command.
The half-king thought he had not been sufficiently consulted, and that
his advice had not been sufficiently followed; such, at least, were
some of the re