t had much to do with the result.
Virginia did her part with some degree of willingness, but Pennsylvania,
whence the general expected to draw a great part of his transport and
provision, would do nothing. The Assembly spent its time bickering with
the governor, and when asked to contribute toward its own defense, made
the astounding statement that "they had rather the French should conquer
them than give up their privileges." Some of them even asserted that
there were no French, but that the whole affair was a scheme of the
politicians, and acted, to use Dinwiddie's words, as though they had
given their senses a long holiday.

Yet, strangely enough, it was from a Pennsylvanian that aid came at last,
for just when matters were at their worst and the general in despair,
there came to his quarters at Frederick a very famous gentleman,--more
famous still in the troublous times which are upon us now,--Mr. Benjamin
Franklin, of Philadelphia, director of posts in the colonies and sometime
printer of "Poor Richard." The general received him as his merit
warranted, and explained to him our difficulties. Mr. Franklin, as
Colonel Washington told me afterward, listened to it all with close
attention, putting in a keen question now and then, and at the end said
he believed he could secure us horses and wagons from his friends among
the Pennsylvania Dutch, who were ever ready to turn an honest penny. So
he wrote them a diplomatic letter, and the result was that, beside near a
hundred furnished earlier, there came to us at Cumberland on the
twentieth above eighty wagons, each with four horses, and the general
declared Mr. Franklin the only honest man he had met in America. We, too,
had cause to remember him, for all the officers were summoned to the
general's tent, and there was distributed to each of us a package
containing a generous supply of sugar, tea, coffee, chocolate, cheese,
butter, wine, spirits, hams, tongues, rice, and raisins, the gift of Mr.
Franklin and the Philadelphia Assembly.

There was high carnival in our tent that night, as you may well believe.
We were all there, all who had been present at Fort Necessity, and not
since the campaign opened had we sat down to such a feast. And when the
plates were cleared away and only the pipes and wine remained, Peyronie
sang us a song in French, and Spiltdorph one in German, and Polson one in
Gaelic, and old Christopher Gist, who stuck in his head to see what was
toward, was