Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/30

12 in the death of Jumonville, was followed, on July 3, 1754, by the battle of the Great Meadows, where Washington held his ground, in Fort Necessity, from eleven in the morning to eight at night, against a great superiority of numbers, until the French requested a parley. A capitulation ensued, in every way honorable to Washington as it was translated and read to him, but which proved, when printed, to contain terms in the French language which he never would have signed or admitted had they not been suppressed or softened by the interpreter.

The course now adopted by Gov. Dinwiddie in the reorganization of the Virginia troops, against which Washington remonstrated, and which would have reduced him to an inferior grade, led at once to his resignation, and, after a brief visit to his mother, he retired to Mount Vernon. He was soon solicited by Gov. Sharpe, of Maryland, then the commander-in-chief of the English forces, to resume his station, but under circumstances and upon conditions incompatible with his self-respect. In declining the invitation he used this memorable language: "I shall have the consolation of knowing that I have opened the way, when the smallness of our numbers exposed us to the attacks of a superior enemy; and that I have had the thanks