Nor had her enemies cause to boast. The Indians, it is
true, had won a battle for them: but they had suffered mortifying defeat
from a raw militia; their general was a prisoner; and they had lost
Acadia past hope.
The campaign was over; but not its effects. It remains to see what
befell from the rout of Braddock and the unpardonable retreat of Dunbar
from the frontier which it was his duty to defend. Dumas had replaced
Contrecoeur in the command of Fort Duquesne; and his first care was to
set on the Western tribes to attack the border settlements. His success
was triumphant. The Delawares and Shawanoes, old friends of the English,
but for years past tending to alienation through neglect and ill-usage,
now took the lead against them. Many of the Mingoes, or Five Nation
Indians on the Ohio, also took up the hatchet, as did various remoter
tribes. The West rose like a nest of hornets, and swarmed in fury
against the English frontier. Such was the consequence of the defeat of
Braddock aided by the skilful devices of the French commander. "It is by
means such as I have mentioned," says Dumas, "varied in every form to
suit the occasion, that I have succeeded in ruining the three adjacent
provinces, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, driving off the
inhabitants, and totally destroying the settlements over a tract of
country thirty leagues wide, reckoning from the line of Fort Cumberland.
M.
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