possible to defend, even with his own small force, against five
hundred French and Indians. He miscalculated, however. The enemy
exceeded in numbers all his expectations. His own resources dwindled;
and so he took the decision of a practical man and surrendered the
fort, on condition that he and his men be allowed to march out with
the honors of war. They returned to Virginia with little delay.

The Burgesses and the people of the State, though chagrined, did not
take so gloomy a view of the collapse of the expedition as Washington
himself did. His own depression equalled his previous exaltation. As
he thought over the affairs of the past half-year in the quiet of
Mount Vernon, the feeling which he had had from the start, that the
expedition had not been properly planned, or directed, or reënforced
in men and supplies, was confirmed. Governor Dinwiddie's notion that
raw volunteers would suffice to overcome trained soldiers had been
proved a delusion. The inadequate pay and provisions of the officers
irritated Washington, not only because they were insufficient, but
also because they fell far short of those of the English regulars.

In his penetrating Biography of Washington, Senator Lodge regards
his conduct of the campaign, which ended in the surrender of Great
Meadows, and his narrative as revealing Washington as a "profoundly
silent man." Carlyle, Senator Lodge says, who preached the doctrine of
silence, brushed Washington aside as a "bloodless Cromwell," "failing
utterly to see that he was the most supremely silent of the great men
of action that the world can show." Let us admit the justice of the
strictures on Carlyle, but let us ask whether Washington's letters at
this time spring from a "silent" man. He writes with perfect openness
to Governor Dinwiddie; complains of the military system under which
the troops are paid and the campaign is managed; he repeatedly