ple.

[Illustration: WASHINGTON'S FIRST VICTORY

"Washington was at the head of his men with a musket in his grasp. The
instant he saw the Frenchmen he discharged his gun at them, and gave the
order to his men to fire. Hence it came about that the first hostile
shot in the French and Indian War was fired by George Washington."]

BRADDOCK'S MASSACRE.

Among the English officers who arrived in 1755 was General Edward
Braddock. He was brave and skillful, but conceited and stubborn. When
Washington, who was one of his aides, explained to him the character of
the treacherous foes whom he would have to fight and advised him to
adopt similar tactics, the English officer insultingly answered that
when he felt the need of advice from a young Virginian, he would ask for
it. He marched toward Fort Duquesne and was within a few miles of the
post, when he ran into an ambush and was assailed so vehemently by a
force of French and Indians that half his men were killed, the rest put
to flight, and himself mortally wounded. Washington and his Virginians,
by adopting the Indian style of fighting, checked the pursuit and saved
the remainder of the men.

[Illustration: BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT.]

In the spring of 1756, England and France declared war against each
other and the struggle now involved those two countries. For two years
the English, despite their preponderance of forces in America, lost
rather than gained ground. Their officers sent across the ocean were a
sorry lot, while the French were commanded by Montcalm, a brilliant
leader. He concentrated his forces and delivered many effective blows,
capturing the forts on the northern border of New York and winning all
the Indians to his support. The English fought in detached bodies and
were continually defeated.

ENGLISH SUCCESSES.

But a change came in 1758, when William Pitt, one of the greatest
Englishmen in history, was called to the head of the government. He
weeded out inefficient officers, replaced them with skillful ones, who,
concentrating their troops, assailed the French at three important
points. Louisburg, on Cape Breton Island, which had been captured more
than a hundred years before, during King George's War, was again taken
by a naval expedition in the summer of 1758. In the autumn, Fort
Duquesne was captured without resistance and named Fort Pitt, in honor
of the illustrious prime minister. The single defeat administered to the
English was at Ticonderoga, wh