e held; and to
which, by their courage, skill, and hardihood, they had, even years
before, won so just a title.

When within a few miles of the French fort, the road began to show
signs of the late disaster. Here and there were to be seen the
blackened and mangled bodies of men, who, while fleeing for their
lives, had been overtaken, and cut down by the murderous tomahawk; or,
exhausted from the loss of blood, had there, by the lonely wayside,
laid them down to die of their wounds. As they advanced, these ghastly
tokens of defeat and massacre were to be met with at shorter and
shorter intervals, till at length they lay thickly scattered about the
ground.

Being now in close neighborhood with the enemy, the English moved with
even greater caution and wariness than before; for they had every
reason to suspect, that, as he had suffered them to come thus far
without molestation, he meant to meet them here, under shelter of his
stronghold, with a resistance all the move determined. When come in
sight, however, what was their surprise, instead of beholding the high
ramparts and strong walls, grim and frowning with cannon, which they
had pictured to their minds, to find a heap of blackened and smoking
ruins!

Deserted by his Indian allies, threatened with famine, cut off from
all hope of aid from the North (where the English were everywhere
gaining ground), and with a force of but five hundred men wherewith to
defend the post against ten times that number, the French general had
seen that the attempt to hold it would be but folly; and, like a
prudent officer, had resolved to abandon it as his only chance of
safety. Waiting, therefore, until the English were within a day's
march of the place, he blew up the magazine, set fire to the works,
and, embarking in his bateaux by the light of the flames, retreated
down the Ohio.

Col. Washington, still leading the advance, was the first to enter;
and, with his own hand planting the British banner on the still
smouldering heaps, took formal possession thereof in the name of his
Britannic majesty, King George the Second. And thus this stronghold of
French power in the Ohio Valley, so long the pest and terror of the
border, fell without a blow. Under the name of Fort Pitt, it was soon
rebuilt, and garrisoned with two hundred of Washington's men; and,
from that time to the war of the Revolution, it was held by the
English, chiefly as a trading-post; and hence the dingy, smoky, noisy,