would fail to render to the expedition
their valuable services as scouts and spies, as had been expected of
them. On the other hand, by taking the old road, they could march
directly to the fort; which, being at that time but feebly garrisoned,
must fall almost without a blow, and this, too, in less than half the
time, and with less than half the trouble and expense. This prudent
counsel, coming from one, who, from his knowledge of the country, had
so good a right to give it, was nevertheless overruled. The English
generals had gathered a most appalling idea of the difficulties and
dangers of this route from the account Braddock had given of it in his
letters. He had therein described it as lying through a region where
the mountains were of the highest and steepest, the forests of the
thickest and tallest, the rocks of the most huge and rugged, the
swamps of the deepest, and the torrents of the swiftest. The route for
the new road, on the contrary, according to the Pennsylvanians, who
saw in it a great advantage to themselves, lay through a region where
the mountains were not by far so lofty, the woods so thick, the rocks
so huge, the swamps so deep, nor the streams so swift, or half so
given to running rampant over their banks. All these advantages this
route had, besides being fifty miles shorter. So, under the mistaken
notion that more was to be gained by following a short road that would
take them a long time in getting over, than by following a long one
that would take them but a short time in getting over, they resolved
to cut the new road.

This was a sore disappointment to Col. Washington; for he saw in it a
likelihood of Braddock's folly being played all over again, and that,
too, on a still larger scale. The tidings of glorious victories won by
British arms in the North had filled the whole country with triumph
and rejoicing, that rendered him all the more impatient at the
tardiness with which their own expedition was moving forward. "He
wished to rival the successes of the North by some brilliant blow in
the South. Perhaps a desire for personal distinction in the eyes of
the lady of his choice may have been at the bottom of his impatience."
This last, it is but fair to say, is an assertion of our great
countryman, Washington Irving; who, being a wise and learned
historian, would not have made it, you may be sure, had not his deep
insight into the workings of the human heart given him a perfect right
so to d