eir point during the panic at Winchester,
had not his patriotism and his sympathy with the public distress been
more powerful than his self-love. He determined, he said, to bear up
under these embarrassments in the hope of better regulations when Lord
Loudoun should arrive; to whom he looked for the future fate of
Virginia.

[While these events were occurring on the Virginia frontier, military
events went on tardily and heavily at the north. The campaign against
Canada hung fire. The armament coming out for the purpose under Lord
Loudoun was delayed. Gen. Abercrombie reached Albany June 25th, with
two regiments. July 12th word was received that the forts Ontario and
Oswego were menaced by the French. Relief was delayed until the
arrival of Lord Loudoun, which took place on the 29th of July. After
some delays Gen. Webb left Albany, August 12th, for the relief of
Oswego. But while the British commanders had debated, Field-marshal
the Marquis de Montcalm had acted.] He was a different kind of soldier
from Abercrombie or Loudoun. A capacious mind and enterprising spirit
animated a small, but active and untiring frame. Quick in thought,
quick in speech, quicker still in action, he comprehended every thing
at a glance, and moved from point to point of the province with a
celerity and secrecy that completely baffled his slow and pondering
antagonists. Crown Point and Ticonderoga were visited, and steps taken
to strengthen their works; then, hastening to Montreal, he put himself
at the head of a force of regulars, Canadians, and Indians; ascended
the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario; blocked up the mouth of the Oswego
by his vessels, landed his guns, and besieged the two forts; drove the
garrison out of one into the other; killed the commander, Colonel
Mercer, and compelled the garrisons to surrender prisoners of war. His
blow achieved, Montcalm returned in triumph to Montreal.

The season was now too far advanced for Lord Loudoun to enter upon any
great military enterprise; he postponed, therefore, the great northern
campaign, so much talked of and debated, until the following year.

Circumstances had led Washington to think that Lord Loudoun "had
received impressions to his prejudice by false representations of
facts," and that a wrong idea prevailed at head-quarters respecting
the state of military affairs in Virginia. He was anxious, therefore,
for an opportunity of placing all these matters in a proper light;
and, understan