Chapter 23

WASHINGTON RECOVERS HIS HEALTH--AGAIN IN COMMAND AT FORT LOUDOUN-- ADMINISTRATION OF PITT--LOUDOUN SUCCEEDED BY GENERAL ABERCROMBIE-- MILITARY ARRANGEMENTS--WASHINGTON COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE VIRGINIA FORCES--AMHERST AGAINST LOUISBURG--GENERAL WOLFE--MONTGOMERY--CAPTURE OF LOUISBURG--ABERCROMBIE ON LAKE GEORGE--DEATH OF LORD HOWE--REPULSE OF ABERCROMBIE--SUCCESS OF BRADSTREET AT OSWEGO.

For several months Washington was afflicted by returns of his malady, accompanied by symptoms indicative, as he thought, of a decline. "My constitution," writes he to his friend Colonel Stanwix, "is much impaired, and nothing can retrieve it but the greatest care and the most circumspect course of life. This being the case, as I have now no prospect left of preferment in the military way, and despair of rendering that immediate service which my country may require from the person commanding its troops, I have thoughts of quitting my command and retiring from all public business, leaving my post to be filled by some other person more capable of the task, and who may, perhaps, have his endeavors crowned with better success than mine have been."

A gradual improvement in his health, and a change in his prospects, encouraged him to continue in what really was his favorite career, and at the beginning of April he was again in command at Fort Loudoun. Mr. Francis Fauquier had been appointed successor to Dinwiddie, and, until he should arrive, Mr. John Blair, president of the council, had, from his office, charge of the government. In the latter Washington had a friend who appreciated his character and services, and was disposed to carry out his plans.

The general aspect of affairs, also, was more animating. Under the able and intrepid administration of William Pitt, who had control of the British cabinet, an effort was made to retrieve the disgraces of the late American campaign, and to carry on the war with greater vigor. The instructions for a common fund were discontinued; there was no more talk of taxation by Parliament. Lord Loudoun, from whom so much had been anticipated, had disappointed by his inactivity, and been relieved from a command in which he had attempted much and done so little. His friends alleged that his inactivity was owing to a want of unanimity and co-operation in the colonial governments, which paralyzed all his well meant efforts. Franklin, it is probable, probed the matter with his usual sagacity when he characterized him as a man "entirely made up of indecision."--"Like St. George on the signs, he was always on horseback, but never rode on."

On the return of his lordship to England, the general command in America devolved on Major-general Abercrombie, and the forces were divided into three detached bodies; one, under Major-general Amherst, was to operate in the north with the fleet under Boscawen, for the reduction of Louisburg and the island of Cape Breton;