WEBVTT NOTE 37. Early Phases of the French and Indian War 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.960 volume 2 chapter 37 early phases of the french and indian war the treaty of a la chapelle left 2 00:00:08.960 --> 00:00:16.160 unresolved the main force for war in european relations the insensate desire of the english 3 00:00:16.160 --> 00:00:23.440 war party for imperial expansion and aggression the powerful war party was headed by the duke of 4 00:00:23.440 --> 00:00:29.360 cumberland the favorite son of king george the second a military leader who had well earned the 5 00:00:29.360 --> 00:00:36.960 The title butcher in suppressing the Jacobite rebellion in Scotland in 1745, Cumberland's 6 00:00:36.960 --> 00:00:43.320 protege Henry Fox, the Duke of Bedford at the powerful post of Secretary of State for 7 00:00:43.320 --> 00:00:51.280 the Southern Department, and, above all, William Pitt. The half-insane Pitt was the prototype 8 00:00:51.280 --> 00:00:58.720 of a modern politician. Possessed of a charismatic personality, Pitt's oratory could sway the 9 00:00:58.720 --> 00:01:02.600 of Masses for Evermore Grandiose War Programs. 10 00:01:02.600 --> 00:01:05.880 Yet there was method in his madness. 11 00:01:05.880 --> 00:01:09.280 Pitt was consistently the spokesman for the imperial clique 12 00:01:09.280 --> 00:01:12.880 of London merchants and financiers. 13 00:01:12.880 --> 00:01:16.440 Underneath the cloud of patrioteering verbiage 14 00:01:16.440 --> 00:01:19.960 that could mobilize the masses, a hard core 15 00:01:19.960 --> 00:01:24.440 of vested economic interest was being effectively pursued. 16 00:01:25.320 --> 00:01:28.120 While King George's war was still underway, 17 00:01:28.120 --> 00:01:34.420 Pitt was vainly urging upon the cautious Newcastle an expansion of the war to conquer French 18 00:01:34.420 --> 00:01:41.460 Canada. In 1746, Pitt was agreeing with the leading New Hampshire fish merchant, William 19 00:01:41.460 --> 00:01:48.460 Vaughan, on the goal of conquest. In the same year, he had his ally the Duke of Bedford 20 00:01:48.460 --> 00:01:55.400 submit a memorandum to Newcastle, pressing for the seizure of Canada. Among the reasons 21 00:01:55.400 --> 00:02:12.400 was the smashing of the French trade and sources of supply, but heading the list was the British seizure of the entire North American fur and fish trade, in which the French colonies were outcompeting the English. 22 00:02:12.400 --> 00:02:19.400 The peace treaty ended these schemes temporarily, but the agitation of the War Party continued unabated. 23 00:02:19.400 --> 00:02:43.400 The War Party was able to strengthen its command of the key cabinet post. Bedford had moved up from the Admiralty to the crucial post of Secretary of State for the South. His protege, the Earl of Sandwich, assumed his former post, while, as we have seen, his other protege, the Earl of Halifax, came in as President of the Board of Trade. 24 00:02:43.400 --> 00:02:56.400 William Shirley was selected by Bedford to sabotage the boundary negotiations with France over Nova Scotia and other colonial areas, and thus to keep the war pot brewing. 25 00:02:56.400 --> 00:03:10.400 Pelham managed to oust Bedford and Sandwich from office in 1751 and to horrify the war party by slashing army and naval appropriations and pursuing a pacific policy. 26 00:03:10.400 --> 00:03:23.400 Halifax, however, at the Board of Trade, not only aggrandized his power over colonial affairs but also pressed his desire for aggression against New France. 27 00:03:23.400 --> 00:03:33.400 Finally, the death of the Prime Minister, Henry Pelham, in early 1754, eliminated the great leader of the peace forces. 28 00:03:33.400 --> 00:03:47.400 Although he succeeded his brother as Prime Minister, Newcastle, isolated and surrounded by the War Party, was pushed into another and far more grandiose war against France. 29 00:03:47.400 --> 00:03:55.880 Caught in a war drive that he opposed, Newcastle decided that the Cumberland-Fox clique, which 30 00:03:55.880 --> 00:04:03.260 wanted a limited war against France, concentrated on the continent of Europe, was far less dangerous 31 00:04:03.260 --> 00:04:10.660 than the Pitt-Bedford warmongers for unlimited aggression against all the French colonies. 32 00:04:10.660 --> 00:04:16.080 Newcastle therefore threw in with the former group, and Henry Fox was brought into the 33 00:04:16.080 --> 00:04:28.840 All the previous inter-colonial wars had begun in Europe and were then reflected in the colonies. 34 00:04:28.840 --> 00:04:36.220 But the French and Indian War between Britain and France began in the colonies and only 35 00:04:36.220 --> 00:04:40.440 later was extended to Europe as the Seven Years' War. 36 00:04:40.440 --> 00:04:49.080 While the war in Europe lasted from 1756 to 1763, the war in America broke out, albeit 37 00:04:49.080 --> 00:04:56.680 unofficially, in late 1753 and was virtually over by 1760. 38 00:04:56.680 --> 00:05:03.360 The French had heroically explored the Mississippian Ohio valleys and had settled them as efficient 39 00:05:03.360 --> 00:05:10.280 fur traders with the Indians, with a population throughout their extensive territory of no 40 00:05:10.280 --> 00:05:17.880 No more than 75,000, the French faced an aggressive and powerful set of English colonies containing 41 00:05:17.880 --> 00:05:25.160 a million and a half persons, and despite this overwhelmingly superior population, ever 42 00:05:25.160 --> 00:05:30.680 subject to hysteria over the supposed menace of New France. 43 00:05:30.680 --> 00:05:37.360 Moreover, behind the colonies was a British government directing the royal colonial governors 44 00:05:37.360 --> 00:05:44.720 and increasingly in the hands of an extremely aggressive war party, frankly dedicated to 45 00:05:44.720 --> 00:05:52.120 the total conquest of New France and the reduction of France and French trading competition to 46 00:05:52.120 --> 00:05:55.040 second class status. 47 00:05:55.040 --> 00:06:00.880 The final conflict between British America and New France was precipitated not so much 48 00:06:00.880 --> 00:06:10.720 by these general forces, as by an Anglo-Virginian attempt at a huge land grab. English sermons 49 00:06:10.720 --> 00:06:18.120 had now reached the Appalachian mountains, beyond stretched New French territory, tempting 50 00:06:18.120 --> 00:06:26.000 opportunity not only for ousting French fur traders, but also for land speculation. Virginia, 51 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:31.660 in particular began to press its wild and grandiose land claims based on its original 52 00:06:31.660 --> 00:06:38.240 charter of 1609 and ignoring all the developments since. 53 00:06:38.240 --> 00:06:43.000 According to this questionable thesis, the Virginia government was the rightful sovereign 54 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:50.780 of everything not only west but northwest of the Appalachians to the Pacific, a claim which 55 00:06:50.780 --> 00:06:57.780 which directly interfered of course with Pennsylvania's own notion of its proper territorial area. 56 00:06:58.220 --> 00:07:05.220 The first attempted Virginia grab of French land in the Ohio Valley came in 1743 when 57 00:07:05.860 --> 00:07:12.860 Colonel James Patton and his partners asked Virginia for a grant of 200,000 acres on the 58 00:07:13.300 --> 00:07:20.300 New River. At that time, before King George's War had begun, the Virginia government refused 59 00:07:20.780 --> 00:07:43.780 The Advand of War ended Virginia's scruples, however, helped by an Indian conference at Lancaster in mid-1744, at which the Iroquois signed away the right to the Ohio lands. 60 00:07:43.780 --> 00:07:50.140 The fact that the Iroquois' only connection with this land was their highly dubious assertion 61 00:07:50.140 --> 00:07:58.740 of overlordship made no difference. A flimsy legitimacy provided by pliant Iroquois over 62 00:07:58.740 --> 00:08:07.520 land they had nothing to do with was now cast over the British claims. In 1745, the Virginia 63 00:08:07.520 --> 00:08:13.400 The Virginia government gave the first of its munificent grants of French territory. 64 00:08:13.400 --> 00:08:19.000 On the same day, it gave away three huge land grants. 65 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:27.160 One was of 100,000 acres on the Greenbrier River across the Alleghenies to the Greenbrier 66 00:08:27.160 --> 00:08:28.840 Company. 67 00:08:28.840 --> 00:08:34.600 The company was headed by the leading Virginia oligarch, John Robinson, president of the 68 00:08:34.600 --> 00:08:41.120 The Virginia Council and included John Robinson, Jr., Speaker of the House of Burgesses and 69 00:08:41.120 --> 00:08:49.560 William Beverly. A second gift granted 100,000 acres to the old patent group, this time on 70 00:08:49.560 --> 00:08:56.880 the Ohio and New Rivers. A third grant of 50,000 acres on the Greenbrier River was made 71 00:08:56.880 --> 00:09:03.960 to Henry Downs and Associates. All this was ominous enough to the French, but at least 72 00:09:03.960 --> 00:09:11.720 These moves were made in the heat of conflict. The truly ominous and critical land grab attempt 73 00:09:11.720 --> 00:09:19.240 was launched immediately after the war with the grant of a vast amount of Ohio land to the newly 74 00:09:19.240 --> 00:09:28.280 formed Ohio Company. The Ohio Company had its roots in the monstrous sized land grant of over 75 00:09:28.280 --> 00:09:36.840 Five million acres given to Lord Culpepper in the northern neck and later inherited by Lord Fairfax. 76 00:09:37.640 --> 00:09:45.640 An early manager of the Fairfax Fife was Robert King Carter, who was able to use his position to 77 00:09:45.640 --> 00:09:52.040 amass a very large amount of land and to gain a dominant position in the Virginia planter oligarchy. 78 00:09:52.040 --> 00:10:00.000 Early in the 18th century, Fairfax replaced Carter by young Thomas Lee, who in turn used 79 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:03.960 his position to amass a landed fortune. 80 00:10:03.960 --> 00:10:10.000 He was also aided in this task by marrying a Ludwell heiress and thus adding the prominent 81 00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:11.880 Ludwell estates. 82 00:10:11.880 --> 00:10:18.840 Losing his post in 1747, Lee, a member of the Virginia Council, decided to organize 83 00:10:18.840 --> 00:10:24.700 Lee recognized the Ohio Company as a speculative group for land settlement and proceeded to 84 00:10:24.700 --> 00:10:30.960 pressure the government for the subsidy of a huge land grant at the forks of the Ohio 85 00:10:30.960 --> 00:10:38.320 River. To form the Ohio Company, Lee gathered around him a significant group. Many of them 86 00:10:38.320 --> 00:10:45.000 were residents and neighbors of the Fairfax Fife, including George Fairfax and the Washington 87 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:52.760 and Family, especially Lawrence and Augustine Washington. Marylanders among the organizers 88 00:10:52.760 --> 00:10:59.320 included the frontier trader Thomas Creasip. Lee and eleven others formed the Ohio Company 89 00:10:59.320 --> 00:11:07.000 in 1747 and quickly petitioned the governor and council for a grant of 200,000 acres of 90 00:11:07.000 --> 00:11:13.920 land near the forks of the Ohio River. But Governor Gooch was not enthusiastic about 91 00:11:13.920 --> 00:11:19.720 Without the aggressiveness of the land grants, and the powerful speaker John Robinson, himself 92 00:11:19.720 --> 00:11:26.920 a rival land speculator and a determined opponent of the company, was able to secure rejection 93 00:11:26.920 --> 00:11:33.780 of the Ohio Company request. Undaunted, Lee and the others went over the Virginia Governor's 94 00:11:33.780 --> 00:11:40.040 head to appeal the decision to the Crown. To petition and put pressure on London, Lee 95 00:11:40.040 --> 00:11:45.880 Lee secured the services of a prominent Quaker merchant, John Hanbury. 96 00:11:45.880 --> 00:11:53.640 In the spring of 1749, not long after Lee had assumed the post of President of the Council, 97 00:11:53.640 --> 00:11:59.820 the Crown directed Virginia to grant the 200,000 acres. 98 00:11:59.820 --> 00:12:05.840 In the summer, the Governor and Council made the grant, conditioned on a hundred families 99 00:12:05.840 --> 00:12:13.080 settling there within seven years, and on the company's building a fort near the forks. 100 00:12:13.080 --> 00:12:18.720 As soon as the conditions were met, the company would take up an adjoining 300,000 acres on 101 00:12:18.720 --> 00:12:20.480 the same terms. 102 00:12:20.480 --> 00:12:26.200 Quid rent payments to the crown were waived for ten years, and after that would only have 103 00:12:26.200 --> 00:12:30.200 to be made for land actually under cultivation. 104 00:12:30.200 --> 00:12:36.080 The conditions of the Ohio Company grant had two fateful consequences. 105 00:12:36.080 --> 00:12:43.800 One, the fact of official British sanction alerted the French to the likelihood of dangerous 106 00:12:43.800 --> 00:12:47.520 encroachment on their territory. 107 00:12:47.520 --> 00:12:53.880 And two, a direct aggressive challenge was thereby laid down to the French. 108 00:12:53.880 --> 00:12:58.780 It was clearly high time for the French to act. 109 00:12:58.780 --> 00:13:04.900 By the time the grant to the Ohio Company was made, Lee had converted the Company all 110 00:13:04.900 --> 00:13:11.460 the more into a personal fief. George Fairfax and others had dropped out, while friends 111 00:13:11.460 --> 00:13:18.580 and relatives such as Richard Lee, Philip Ludwell Lee, and George Mason were added, 112 00:13:18.580 --> 00:13:24.820 as was the powerful Duke of Bedford in reward for his services in securing the grant. The 113 00:13:24.820 --> 00:13:30.740 The outgoing Governor Gooch, for his part, tried to offset the exclusive privilege of 114 00:13:30.740 --> 00:13:37.340 the grant by handing out huge chunks of Ohio territory on the same day to several other 115 00:13:37.340 --> 00:13:40.460 groups of land speculators. 116 00:13:40.460 --> 00:13:46.100 John Taylor secured a renewal of the 100,000-acre patent grant. 117 00:13:46.100 --> 00:13:51.700 Bernard Moore and others received 100,000 acres on the New River. 118 00:13:51.700 --> 00:13:58.700 Payton Randolph and others 400,000 acres on the new, William Winston Jr. 50,000 acres 119 00:13:59.620 --> 00:14:06.620 east of the Ohio River, and the Loyal Company received the staggering total of 800,000 acres 120 00:14:07.700 --> 00:14:14.700 along the southern Virginia frontier. All in all, nearly 1,500,000 acres were blithely 121 00:14:14.700 --> 00:14:30.260 The Loyal Company and the other grantees were not required to colonize or to build forts. 122 00:14:30.260 --> 00:14:35.900 The Loyal Company was a coalition of speculators headed by John Lewis of the Shenandoah Valley 123 00:14:35.900 --> 00:14:54.980 The Loyal Company collaborated closely with the Greenbrier Company of John Robinsons. 124 00:14:54.980 --> 00:15:02.100 In the meanwhile, Thomas Lee became acting governor of Virginia in 1749-50, succeeding 125 00:15:02.100 --> 00:15:04.300 Gooch. 126 00:15:04.300 --> 00:15:11.260 After Lee's death in late 1750, the newly appointed Governor of Virginia, Robert Dinwiddie, 127 00:15:11.260 --> 00:15:18.340 had become, not accidentally, a member of the Ohio Company. Dinwiddie, incidentally, 128 00:15:18.340 --> 00:15:25.300 had gotten his start in the British bureaucracy as a virulent hatchet man for Lord Carteret, 129 00:15:25.300 --> 00:15:33.660 engaged in prosecuting and ousting firm adherents of Walpole from the Royal bureaucracy. Dinwiddie 130 00:15:33.660 --> 00:15:39.660 The company was now a protege of the formidable Duke of Bedford. Soon the company was expanded 131 00:15:39.660 --> 00:15:47.000 to include the Mercers, Robert Carter, George Washington, and Governor Arthur Dobbs of North 132 00:15:47.000 --> 00:15:55.380 Carolina. From the time of the Kranz in 1749, much of Virginia politics may be explained 133 00:15:55.380 --> 00:16:03.480 by the emergence of two powerful factions of speculators in Ohio land. The Ohio Company 134 00:16:03.480 --> 00:16:18.480 and the Loyal Greenbrier Company, coalition of the Robinsons, Pendeltons, Jeffersons and others. 135 00:16:18.480 --> 00:16:32.480 As we have indicated, the Ohio Company, with its British success, its grip on the governorship and its duty to build a fort on the forks of the Ohio, was the more alarming speculative group. 136 00:16:32.480 --> 00:16:39.640 To the fur traders and politicians of Pennsylvania, to the Indians of the Ohio Valley, and, not 137 00:16:39.640 --> 00:16:43.320 least of all, to the French. 138 00:16:43.320 --> 00:16:48.280 The French, for their part, reacted to the threat of Anglo-Virginian aggression in the 139 00:16:48.280 --> 00:16:52.720 Ohio Valley with efficiency and dispatch. 140 00:16:52.720 --> 00:16:59.360 The French effectively warned the Native Indians that the Ohio Company meant to clear and settle, 141 00:16:59.360 --> 00:17:05.120 and therefore to oust the Indians rather than to trade with them. 142 00:17:05.120 --> 00:17:10.800 The French launched a campaign to oust the English traders from the Ohio Valley, where 143 00:17:10.800 --> 00:17:13.560 they had been permitted to operate freely. 144 00:17:13.560 --> 00:17:19.920 A string of forts was built by the French throughout the region during 1753. 145 00:17:19.920 --> 00:17:25.520 Marquis Duquesne, Governor General of New France, urged over a thousand men to build 146 00:17:25.520 --> 00:17:33.640 A series of defensive forts in the Ohio Valley, including forts Presque Isle on Lake Erie 147 00:17:33.640 --> 00:17:39.480 and Le Bouff and Venango on French Creek. 148 00:17:39.480 --> 00:17:45.240 Governor Dinwiddie, in his turn, reacted to French defensive measures by desperate appeals 149 00:17:45.240 --> 00:17:51.020 to fellow governors, and especially to the Crown, to take appropriate offensive action 150 00:17:51.020 --> 00:17:53.440 to outweigh the French moves. 151 00:17:53.440 --> 00:18:01.800 Finally, in August 1753, the crown under pressure also of the war party at home took 152 00:18:01.800 --> 00:18:08.220 the fateful decision that was to lead to an all-out conflict with France. 153 00:18:08.220 --> 00:18:12.620 The English government threw down the gauntlet of aggression. 154 00:18:12.620 --> 00:18:20.580 It instructed all the American governors to repel a French invasion of what was arrogantly 155 00:18:20.580 --> 00:18:27.340 Witty proclaimed the King's domain in the Ohio Valley, specifically referring to any 156 00:18:27.340 --> 00:18:34.300 interference with the construction of forts. Governor Din Witty was flatly ordered to consider 157 00:18:34.300 --> 00:18:43.540 any French forts as ipso facto acts of aggression upon supposed Virginia territory. And the 158 00:18:43.540 --> 00:18:50.320 The Ohio Company's plan to build a fort on the Ohio was officially encouraged. 159 00:18:50.320 --> 00:18:56.700 Dinwiddie was authorized, if necessary, to drive French forces from his territory by 160 00:18:56.700 --> 00:18:58.900 force of arms. 161 00:18:58.900 --> 00:19:01.100 The die was cast. 162 00:19:01.100 --> 00:19:07.300 Dinwiddie now had official sanction for the aims of his Ohio Company. 163 00:19:07.300 --> 00:19:12.980 Dinwiddie's first step was to send young Major George Washington, a partner in the Ohio 164 00:19:12.980 --> 00:19:18.780 The Ohio Company to Fort Le Boeuf with an ultimatum to the French troops to quit the 165 00:19:18.780 --> 00:19:25.500 Ohio Valley. When Washington returned with what should have been the expected refusal, 166 00:19:25.500 --> 00:19:33.380 Dinwiddie prepared eagerly for war. William Trent, agent of the Ohio Company, was made 167 00:19:33.380 --> 00:19:39.520 a captain by Dinwiddie and sent with a troop of armed men to build a fort at the forks 168 00:19:39.520 --> 00:19:47.680 of the Ohio, and to repel the French. Washington, promoted to lieutenant colonel, was ordered 169 00:19:47.680 --> 00:19:53.920 to raise a hundred men and to join him. The governor also sent messages to all the other 170 00:19:53.920 --> 00:20:00.220 colonies urging them to join the fight and to the Indian tribes, inviting them to make 171 00:20:00.220 --> 00:20:06.700 war upon the French. Dinwiddie tried to call up the militia, but the sturdy citizens of 172 00:20:06.700 --> 00:20:12.660 of Virginia proved highly resistant to the draft. They generally refused to leave their 173 00:20:12.660 --> 00:20:19.020 families and homes for remote imperial aims. The Council noted that the draft was to be 174 00:20:19.020 --> 00:20:26.180 used only for fighting within Virginia, and that the Ohio Valley was only dubiously within 175 00:20:26.180 --> 00:20:32.020 the Old Dominion. Calling a special session in February 1754, 176 00:20:32.020 --> 00:20:38.540 Dean Witte managed to convince the House of Burgesses to appropriate £10,000 for the 177 00:20:38.540 --> 00:20:44.660 invasion, but he was forced to accept a committee of Burgesses to supervise the expenditure 178 00:20:44.660 --> 00:20:46.580 of the money. 179 00:20:46.580 --> 00:20:52.260 Dean Witte, however, had to abandon calling up the drafted militia and desperately tried 180 00:20:52.260 --> 00:21:00.220 to encourage enlistments by proclaiming the reservation of 200,000 acres of Ohio land 181 00:21:00.220 --> 00:21:08.300 for free gifts, free of quit rent, for fifteen years to volunteers for the war. 182 00:21:08.300 --> 00:21:15.720 The Virginians, incidentally, not only refused to be conscripted for the war, they also strongly 183 00:21:15.720 --> 00:21:23.140 resisted conscription of their goods and supplies by the military, as Colonel Washington soon 184 00:21:23.140 --> 00:21:25.720 found to his dismay. 185 00:21:25.720 --> 00:21:31.620 If the Virginians themselves balked at squandering lives and properties for the invasive war for 186 00:21:31.620 --> 00:21:38.740 the Ohio, the citizens of the other colonies proved even more recalcitrant, despite the 187 00:21:38.740 --> 00:21:45.540 urging of their royal governors. The New York Assembly tardily questioned the assumption 188 00:21:45.540 --> 00:21:51.280 that the Ohio Valley was British territory, and the Quaker-run Assembly of Pennsylvania 189 00:21:51.280 --> 00:21:58.040 did much the same. Both refused to call up their militia. The Maryland Assembly also 190 00:21:58.040 --> 00:22:05.320 saw no invasion of British colonial territory in the French occupation of the Ohio. The 191 00:22:05.320 --> 00:22:12.240 New Jersey Assembly refused aid as well. Isaac Norris, the Pennsylvania Quaker leader, summed 192 00:22:12.240 --> 00:22:19.040 up much of colonial opinion when he noted, The Ohio Company are endeavoring to engage 193 00:22:19.040 --> 00:22:25.840 All the Colonies under the Sanction of the King's Command to Defend Their Lands Upon 194 00:22:25.840 --> 00:22:34.080 That River. Only North Carolina voted substantial funds and planned to enlist a military troop. 195 00:22:34.080 --> 00:22:40.360 The grandiose plans of Dinwiddie and the Ohio Company were rudely shattered when on April 196 00:22:40.360 --> 00:22:49.880 171754, Trent's little band, at work on constructing the fort at the forks of the Ohio, surrendered 197 00:22:49.880 --> 00:22:58.160 to a formidable French force of 1,000 men under Claude Pierre Picardy de Contrecourt. 198 00:22:58.160 --> 00:23:04.040 The French commander magnanimously allowed Trent's men to return to Virginia with all 199 00:23:04.040 --> 00:23:11.160 all their possessions, and then rapidly proceeded to build the formidable Fort Duquesne at the 200 00:23:11.160 --> 00:23:19.280 same site. Colonel Washington marched rashly into the valley, and, after wandering around 201 00:23:19.280 --> 00:23:27.320 in some confusion, was, on July 3, quickly smashed at his Fort Necessity by a French 202 00:23:27.320 --> 00:23:38.320 The French forced more than double his own. Once again, the French allowed Washington and his troops to leave the valley and return to Virginia. 203 00:23:38.320 --> 00:23:47.320 The English aggressors had been totally routed and English troops ousted from the entire Ohio Valley. 204 00:23:47.320 --> 00:23:53.280 The British government had sent several companies of regulars to aid in the war. One company 205 00:23:53.280 --> 00:23:59.560 from South Carolina had been in the fray with Washington, but had deeply angered the Virginians 206 00:23:59.560 --> 00:24:06.920 by refusing to obey their orders or to cooperate in the necessary labors of the expedition, 207 00:24:06.920 --> 00:24:14.200 thereby causing friction between Virginia and the British. The other aid arrived later 208 00:24:14.200 --> 00:24:17.560 and only added to the burdens of Virginia. 209 00:24:17.560 --> 00:24:22.600 Two companies of regulars from New York arrived without supplies. 210 00:24:22.600 --> 00:24:28.360 A regimen of colonials came from North Carolina only to find that no one had money to pay 211 00:24:28.360 --> 00:24:32.720 them or had the necessary supplies. 212 00:24:32.720 --> 00:24:40.320 The harassed North Carolinians mutinied and mass desertions followed during July and August, 213 00:25:10.320 --> 00:25:16.800 Governor Dinwiddie would be properly chastened by these defeats and forget about the whole 214 00:25:16.800 --> 00:25:25.880 Ohio adventure. But not Dinwiddie. Like all hardliners everywhere, he was resolved to 215 00:25:25.880 --> 00:25:33.960 fight to the last life and bit of property of everyone else. In a frenzy, Dinwiddie sought 216 00:25:33.960 --> 00:25:39.720 at every hand to push war to the uttermost. The British government he urged to send more 217 00:25:39.720 --> 00:25:48.100 for troops and supplies, and boldly recommended a parliamentary poll tax upon the entire American 218 00:25:48.100 --> 00:25:56.040 continent to finance the campaign. This would have involved the dangerous and highly provocative 219 00:25:56.040 --> 00:26:02.940 scrapping of the crucial principle that no colony could be taxed without the consent 220 00:26:02.940 --> 00:26:10.940 of its Elected Assembly. At home, Dinwiddie actually ordered Colonel Washington to re-invade 221 00:26:10.940 --> 00:26:17.200 Ohio less than a month after his route, but fortunately a delay in raising funds by the 222 00:26:17.200 --> 00:26:23.400 House of Burgesses led him to cancel this scheme. In the fall, the lower house agreed 223 00:26:23.400 --> 00:26:31.080 to appropriate 20,000 pounds for the war and to levy an onerous poll tax to raise the money. 224 00:26:31.080 --> 00:26:37.560 The House refused to draft militia for fighting outside Virginia, but did agree to conscript 225 00:26:37.560 --> 00:26:43.080 all vagrants and to force them to fight for Virginian glory. 226 00:26:43.080 --> 00:26:50.000 Dinwiddie had still not given up the idea of a winter campaign to recapture Fort Duquesne, 227 00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:55.400 but the lack of interest by the other colonies finally forced him to abandon the plan. 228 00:26:55.400 --> 00:27:01.680 Meanwhile, in late 1753, the New York government decided to call a joint conference of the 229 00:27:01.680 --> 00:27:09.520 northern colonies, with the Iroquois and other Indian tribes, for the following June at Albany. 230 00:27:09.520 --> 00:27:15.060 As one of many conferences with the Iroquois and their followers, the idea was to try to 231 00:27:15.060 --> 00:27:21.880 mobilize the Indians for a general assault on French possessions in the Ohio Valley. 232 00:27:21.880 --> 00:27:29.000 It was the ineffable imperialist and warmonger, Governor Shirley of Massachusetts, who seized 233 00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:35.840 the occasion to try to unite the colonies into a league or confederation. 234 00:27:35.840 --> 00:27:41.920 Only when united under one central government could the full resources of the American colonies 235 00:27:41.920 --> 00:27:48.160 be mobilized by the Crown for an all-out assault on New France. 236 00:27:48.160 --> 00:27:54.600 The old imperialist dream of the Dominion of New England was now to be revived and extended 237 00:27:54.600 --> 00:28:01.760 to all the British colonies. The delegates to the Albany Congress were in the main appointed 238 00:28:01.760 --> 00:28:07.960 by the governors and largely taken from the councillors of their respective colonies. 239 00:28:07.960 --> 00:28:13.680 The Indian Conference was supposed to be the only problem on the agenda. But under cover 240 00:28:13.680 --> 00:28:19.560 Under these proceedings, the delegates were persuaded by Benjamin Franklin, a delegate 241 00:28:19.560 --> 00:28:26.120 from Pennsylvania, to seize the occasion to propose a central government to rule over 242 00:28:26.120 --> 00:28:31.980 all the colonies and thus prosecute a far broader and more intensified war against the 243 00:28:31.980 --> 00:28:41.980 French. Franklin did this even though unauthorized to do so by Pennsylvania. This plan of union, 244 00:28:41.980 --> 00:28:47.980 The British Parliament, as approved by the delegates in July, urged the British Parliament 245 00:28:47.980 --> 00:28:54.620 to impose over all the colonies a central super-government, whose executive would be 246 00:28:54.620 --> 00:29:00.560 appointed by the Crown and whose legislature would consist of a Grand Council chosen by 247 00:29:00.560 --> 00:29:06.900 the respective colonial assemblies. Executive salaries were to be provided by the Crown, 248 00:29:06.900 --> 00:29:13.140 Thus, bypassing the salary troubles that the royal governors had all had with the colonial 249 00:29:13.140 --> 00:29:19.460 assemblies, and thus freeing the executive power from the checks and limits imposed on 250 00:29:19.460 --> 00:29:23.500 it by the representatives of the American public. 251 00:29:23.500 --> 00:29:29.060 Of particular significance was the taxing power, to be given to the president and the 252 00:29:29.060 --> 00:29:35.020 council, and to be appropriated for the functions of the general government. 253 00:29:35.020 --> 00:29:42.340 The Albany Plan, however, was a total dud. The independent and liberty-loving colonists 254 00:29:42.340 --> 00:29:48.320 had had enough trouble with royal prerogative embodied in the executive and judicial powers 255 00:29:48.320 --> 00:29:55.120 of the individual colonies. They had no desire for another super-government to add still 256 00:29:55.120 --> 00:30:01.460 another and greater engine of oppression. Rhode Island and Connecticut, now happily 257 00:30:01.460 --> 00:30:18.460 The Connecticut delegates refused to sign the plan, and the Connecticut assembly attacked it bitterly, denouncing it as against the rights and privileges of Englishmen. 258 00:30:18.460 --> 00:30:25.460 The Rhode Island legislature could not forgive its delegate, Stephen Hopkins, for signing the proposal. 259 00:30:25.460 --> 00:30:33.040 A large majority of the Boston town meeting voted against the plan, Dr. William Clarke 260 00:30:33.040 --> 00:30:39.180 perceptively denouncing it to Franklin himself as a scheme for destroying the liberties and 261 00:30:39.180 --> 00:30:44.180 privileges of every British subject upon the continent. 262 00:30:44.180 --> 00:30:48.240 In general, the respective colonies took no notice of the plan. 263 00:30:48.240 --> 00:30:52.700 Even Governor Shirley opposed it bitterly, not of course because the central government 264 00:30:52.700 --> 00:30:59.820 would be too powerful, but because for Shirley it would be far too weak. In particular the 265 00:30:59.820 --> 00:31:07.100 provision for an elected legislature was to Shirley viciously democratic and destructive 266 00:31:07.100 --> 00:31:13.300 of the royal prerogative. Shirley urged that parliament tax the colonies and that the central 267 00:31:13.300 --> 00:31:20.500 legislature be all appointed by the Crown. Governor Morris of Pennsylvania also scented 268 00:31:20.500 --> 00:31:27.640 a Dangerous Republicanism in the Plan, as well as the destruction of Crown Authority. 269 00:31:27.640 --> 00:31:35.260 He also insisted that a union of colonies must permit absolute dictation over the army 270 00:31:35.260 --> 00:31:41.680 by the supergovernment. Discussion in England of the Plan and of the whole problem of imperial 271 00:31:41.680 --> 00:31:49.340 relations with the colonies was cast aside by the immediate crisis of the route of Washington 272 00:31:49.340 --> 00:31:52.180 at Fort Necessity. 273 00:31:52.180 --> 00:31:58.760 Franklin's desperate gamble on the Albany Plan stemmed from his fear that Virginia, 274 00:31:58.760 --> 00:32:04.720 with its vague and grandiose charter claims, would be able to conquer and keep control 275 00:32:04.720 --> 00:32:08.340 of the Ohio Valley land. 276 00:32:08.340 --> 00:32:13.940 Pennsylvania's Quaker Assembly would prevent that colony from contesting the spoils, but 277 00:32:13.940 --> 00:32:20.740 But a central super-government over the colonies would suffer from no such limits or scruples. 278 00:32:20.740 --> 00:32:25.840 Hence Franklin's provision in the Albany Plan that the super-government have the power 279 00:32:25.840 --> 00:32:33.740 to abrogate existing colonial claims to the Western lands and to create their new governments 280 00:32:33.740 --> 00:32:36.660 and land grants. 281 00:32:36.660 --> 00:32:42.460 After it was obvious that the Albany Plan would fail, Franklin unsuccessfully tried 282 00:32:42.460 --> 00:32:51.580 This time to forestall Virginia by creating two new colonies in the Upper Ohio Valley. 283 00:32:51.580 --> 00:32:56.620 In this plan, Franklin was joined by two of his associates at the Albany Congress, Sir 284 00:32:56.620 --> 00:33:02.700 William Johnson and Thomas Pownall, Secretary to the Governor of New York and brother of 285 00:33:02.700 --> 00:33:08.420 the influential John Pownall, Secretary of the Board of Trade. 286 00:33:08.420 --> 00:33:14.360 With Henry Fox now War Secretary and Henry Pelham dead, the English War Party had been 287 00:33:14.360 --> 00:33:21.440 considerably strengthened and Cumberland, Fox, Halifax and Pitt managed partly to push 288 00:33:21.440 --> 00:33:29.280 and partly to circumvent Newcastle and to induce Britain to agree to send two regiments 289 00:33:29.280 --> 00:33:35.220 of regulars to America under General Edward Braddock as Commander-in-Chief of the English 290 00:33:35.220 --> 00:33:41.460 of the French Forces on the Continent. Britain was now committed even more heavily to aggressive 291 00:33:41.460 --> 00:33:48.580 war against New France. Braddock's instructions were to capture the critical French forts 292 00:33:48.580 --> 00:33:55.580 south of the St. Lawrence, and Henry Fox trumpeted these aims in the press in order to provoke 293 00:33:55.580 --> 00:34:02.700 the French into a general war. In that way, Fox and Cumberland expected to use a conquest 294 00:34:02.700 --> 00:34:09.580 of the Ohio Valley and limited aggression against Canada as the back door to war against 295 00:34:09.580 --> 00:34:17.060 France on the continent of Europe. But France, instead, proposed an armistice, which war 296 00:34:17.060 --> 00:34:24.740 intoxicated England indignantly refused. In English plans, everything was neatly blocked 297 00:34:24.740 --> 00:34:32.180 out. General Braddock would launch the main effort from Virginia and recapture Fort Duquesne. 298 00:34:32.180 --> 00:34:37.920 At the same time, Gov. Shirley and Sir William Johnson would capture the key French forts 299 00:34:37.920 --> 00:34:44.480 of Niagara and St. Frederick, Crown Point, at the southern tip of Lake Champlain. Also 300 00:34:44.480 --> 00:34:50.900 at the same time, Admiral Boscollin was to patrol the Atlantic coast and intercept any 301 00:34:50.900 --> 00:34:59.100 French reinforcements for America. At a conference on April 14, 1755, Braddock and the leading 302 00:34:59.100 --> 00:35:04.580 between royal governors hammered out their joint plan of campaign. 303 00:35:04.580 --> 00:35:07.100 The tidy plans blew up very quickly. 304 00:35:07.100 --> 00:35:15.400 First, the French fleet, bearing reinforcements, was able to slip by the British ambush. 305 00:35:15.400 --> 00:35:19.340 But the biggest blow was the fate of Braddock's expedition. 306 00:35:19.340 --> 00:35:25.820 Armed with 2,500 men, mainly British and the rest largely Virginians, Braddock set out 307 00:35:25.820 --> 00:35:32.720 in early June for Fort Duquesne. From the beginning, the Braddock Expedition seemed 308 00:35:32.720 --> 00:35:40.020 ill-omened. As usual, such colonial assemblies as Pennsylvania and Maryland balked at voting 309 00:35:40.020 --> 00:35:48.100 for any substantial aid funds. Indeed, Dinwiddie incensed at the colonist indifference and 310 00:35:48.100 --> 00:35:54.620 their persistence in mutually satisfactory trading with the enemy, called on Britain 311 00:35:54.620 --> 00:36:00.980 to tax the colonies and to ban all exports from America. 312 00:36:00.980 --> 00:36:06.860 The first error of the expedition itself was the decision to march from Virginia, a far 313 00:36:06.860 --> 00:36:13.620 more difficult and rugged path to decaying than from Pennsylvania. But Virginia was favored 314 00:36:13.620 --> 00:36:21.620 not only as a reliable royal colony not plagued by Quakers or a proprietary, but also as a 315 00:36:21.620 --> 00:36:31.300 Next, the lack of enthusiasm for the war by the American public was revealed in their 316 00:36:31.300 --> 00:36:34.980 indifference to supplying the troops. 317 00:36:34.980 --> 00:36:40.100 Braddock was moved to denounce the frontier populace of Virginia and Maryland in no uncertain 318 00:36:40.100 --> 00:36:41.980 terms. 319 00:36:41.980 --> 00:36:47.460 Only Benjamin Franklin, eager to serve the aggressive British war effort, was able to 320 00:36:47.460 --> 00:36:54.580 to gall and wheedle the German farmers into providing supplies to the Braddock forces. 321 00:36:54.580 --> 00:37:00.260 Arriving near Fort Duquesne on July 9, the mighty Braddock army was set upon by a French 322 00:37:00.260 --> 00:37:07.780 and Indian force of little more than 800, and was promptly cut to ribbons. General Braddock 323 00:37:07.780 --> 00:37:13.460 was killed in the fray, and the demoralized British, under the command of Colonel Thomas 324 00:37:13.460 --> 00:37:20.020 Press Dunbar fled back as fast as they could across the Alleghenies, destroying large amounts 325 00:37:20.020 --> 00:37:26.300 of provisions in order to speed their way. Dunbar did not stop until he had taken the 326 00:37:26.300 --> 00:37:34.860 army all the way to the snug safety of Philadelphia. Governor Dinwiddie, still indomitably eager 327 00:37:34.860 --> 00:37:42.040 for others to fight to the last man, again urged another early attack on Fort Duquesne, 328 00:37:42.040 --> 00:37:47.780 But Dunbar had had enough. Once again the British drive for conquest had been thoroughly 329 00:37:47.780 --> 00:37:55.400 crushed by the French. Dinwiddie's war frenzy, however, was again redoubled. Bitterly denouncing 330 00:37:55.400 --> 00:38:02.240 Dunbar's retreat to safety, Dinwiddie was tireless in his efforts to continue and escalate 331 00:38:02.240 --> 00:38:09.480 the conflict. He had just succeeded in pressuring and cajoling the Virginia Assembly into appropriating 332 00:38:09.480 --> 00:38:15.400 and ten thousand pounds for the war. Now he reconvened the assembly, which proved 333 00:38:15.400 --> 00:38:21.400 eager to pour good money after bad and granted another forty thousand pounds to be raised 334 00:38:21.400 --> 00:38:27.760 by an annual poll tax of one shilling. He also called up the Virginia militia, which 335 00:38:27.760 --> 00:38:33.880 he placed at the frontier under Colonel Washington's command. But the liberty-loving people of 336 00:38:33.880 --> 00:38:40.800 of Virginia showed no disposition whatever to give up their lives for the sacred cause 337 00:38:40.800 --> 00:38:47.800 of grabbing the Ohio land from the French. Nonviolent resistance greatly slowed the rate 338 00:38:47.800 --> 00:38:54.340 of conscription as well as the fighting elan of the troops. Washington complained long 339 00:38:54.340 --> 00:39:00.640 and loud of the laziness and indifference of the militia officers, especially of the 340 00:39:00.640 --> 00:39:07.560 and recruiting officers themselves who preferred carousal to enforcing conscription. 341 00:39:07.560 --> 00:39:13.360 Of particular significance is Washington's report on the libertarian spirit of the militia 342 00:39:13.360 --> 00:39:16.800 and their dyed-in-the-wool resistance to the draft. 343 00:39:16.800 --> 00:39:23.120 If we talk of obliging men to serve their country, Washington lamented, we are sure 344 00:39:23.120 --> 00:39:52.600 In Pennsylvania, as we have seen, the assembly was stampeded after Braddock's defeat into 345 00:39:52.600 --> 00:39:58.160 to Passing a Militia Law. However, Quakers were exempted from the draft and the militia 346 00:39:58.160 --> 00:40:03.840 was formed as a people's army with the officers democratically elected by the men of each 347 00:40:03.840 --> 00:40:09.560 company. In this democratic arrangement, the regimental officers were in turn chosen by 348 00:40:09.560 --> 00:40:16.140 the elected officers of the company. And finally, in a creatively libertarian provision, no 349 00:40:16.140 --> 00:40:23.240 No officer or private in the Pennsylvania militia was to be subject to any articles of war unless 350 00:40:23.240 --> 00:40:30.340 he personally declared his consent to them in the presence of a judge. Virginia continued 351 00:40:30.340 --> 00:40:36.300 to confront the reluctance of the people to have their bodies or their goods confiscated 352 00:40:36.300 --> 00:40:43.020 for purposes of war. Colonel Washington grumbled that Virginians should be so tenacious of 353 00:40:43.020 --> 00:40:50.020 of Liberty, and threatened to resign his command if a tougher militia law were not passed. 354 00:40:50.020 --> 00:40:56.420 Furthermore, the people persisted inordinately in harboring and aiding deserters from the 355 00:40:56.420 --> 00:41:03.980 militia and in refusing to contribute supplies to the army. As Washington complained, In 356 00:41:03.980 --> 00:41:10.580 all things I meet with the greatest opposition, no orders are obeyed but what a party of soldiers 357 00:41:10.580 --> 00:41:17.140 or My Own Drawn Sword in Forces. Without this, a single horse for the most urgent occasion 358 00:41:17.140 --> 00:41:24.820 cannot be had. To such a pitch has the insolence of the people arrived. In the fall of 1755, 359 00:41:24.820 --> 00:41:31.620 a tighter militia act was passed in Virginia, punishing those who aided deserters and rewarding 360 00:41:31.620 --> 00:41:38.180 informers who had helped round them up. Still, collection of the militia proceeded very slowly. 361 00:41:38.180 --> 00:41:46.100 The death of Braddock left the veteran warmonger and imperialist William Shirley in charge of 362 00:41:46.100 --> 00:41:53.420 the English forces in America. Governor Shirley was as impossible to discourage as Dinwiddie, 363 00:41:53.420 --> 00:41:58.600 the only difference being Shirley's greater interest in the northern frontier with Canada 364 00:41:58.600 --> 00:42:04.100 than in the Ohio Valley. Shirley managed to whip New England and New York into providing 365 00:42:04.100 --> 00:42:16.500 William Johnson's expedition in the fall of 1755 bogged down because of a lack of supplies 366 00:42:16.500 --> 00:42:21.720 and because of the increasing restiveness of the soldiers, who were able to keep the 367 00:42:21.720 --> 00:42:29.100 usual tyranny of an army at a minimum by electing their own officers. The expedition, finally, 368 00:42:29.100 --> 00:42:37.300 had to be abandoned. Shirley, in the meanwhile, was able to mobilize about 1,500 men for his 369 00:42:37.300 --> 00:42:44.980 own campaign to seize Fort Niagara. But this, too, had to be abandoned. Indeed, the only 370 00:42:44.980 --> 00:42:52.420 British victory during 1755 was the capture of Fort Beaujol in New Brunswick, then part 371 00:42:52.420 --> 00:42:59.080 of Nova Scotia. And this victory led to problems with the American colonials. During King George 372 00:42:59.080 --> 00:43:06.080 During the George's War, Britain had forced Massachusetts soldiers to remain in Louisburg beyond their terms of enlistment. 373 00:43:06.080 --> 00:43:19.080 To forestall a repetition of this disaster, Massachusetts forced the British to issue certificates to the soldiers guaranteeing discharge at the end of their enlistment. 374 00:43:19.080 --> 00:43:24.080 The British were hardly content to leave matters like that, however. 375 00:43:24.080 --> 00:43:33.080 During the Nova Scotia campaign, they subjected the Americans to special harassment to induce them to enlist in British regiments. 376 00:43:33.080 --> 00:43:45.080 This treatment infuriated both the American troops, who began to desert en masse, and the Massachusetts House, which demanded that the men be sent home.