cover their strength, he proceeded with Captain
Mackay to Williamsburg, to make his military report to the governor.

A copy of the capitulation was subsequently laid before the Virginia
House of Burgesses, with explanations. Notwithstanding the unfortunate
result of the campaign, the conduct of Washington and his officers was
properly appreciated, and they received a vote of thanks for their
bravery, and gallant defence of their country. From the vote of
thanks, two officers were excepted; Major Stobo, who was charged with
cowardice, and Washington's unfortunate master of fence and blundering
interpreter, Jacob Van Braam, who was accused of treachery, in
purposely misinterpreting the articles of capitulation.

We will here anticipate dates to record the fortunes of the half-king
after his withdrawal from the camp. He and several of his warriors,
with their wives and children, retreated to Aughquick, in the back
part of Pennsylvania, where George Croghan had an agency, and was
allowed money from time to time for the maintenance of Indian allies.
The half-king expressed himself perfectly disgusted with the white
man's mode of warfare. The French, he said, were cowards; the English,
fools. Washington was a good man, but wanted experience; he would not
take advice of the Indians, and was always driving them to fight
according to his own notions. For this reason he (the half-king) had
carried off his wife and children to a place of safety. After a time
the chieftain fell dangerously ill, and on his death, which took place
shortly afterwards, there was great lamentation.

Early in August Washington rejoined his regiment, which had arrived at
Alexandria by the way of Winchester. Letters from Governor Dinwiddie
urged him to recruit it to the former number of three hundred men, and
join Colonel Innes at Wills' Creek, where that officer was stationed
with Mackay's independent company of South Carolinians, and two
independent companies from New York; and had been employed in erecting
a work to serve as a frontier post and rally point; which work
received the name of Fort Cumberland, in honor of the Duke of
Cumberland, captain-general of the British army.

In the meantime the French, elated by their recent triumph, and
thinking no danger at hand, relaxed their vigilance at Fort Duquesne.
Stobo, who was a kind of prisoner at large there, found means to send
a letter secretly by an Indian, dated July 28, and directed to the
comm