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DEFEAT OF GENERAL BRADDOCK.vice of Washington, who wished to lead with his THE frontispiece of the present number of the Virginians, the British grenadiers marched in front, Family Magazine, represents the defeat of General about half a mile ahead; the Virginia troops folBraddock. The artist, Mr. J. G. Chapman, has lowed; and the rest of the army brought up the selected for the subject of his design, the moment rear. The ground was covered with whortleberry that General Braddock is carried from the field mor- bushes reaching to the horses' bellies, until they tally wounded; Lieutenant Washington assuming gained the top of a hill, which commanded an exthe command, and with his Virginia troops, covering tensive prospect far ahead. Here a council was the retreat of the British, and saving the corps from held, during which, the traditionary authority I folutter annihilation. The best narrative of the action low describes Braddock as standing with a fusee in that we can present, is contained in the interesting his right hand, the breech on the ground, and rubLife of Washington, by that distinguished author, J. bing the leaves with his toe, as if in great perplexK. Paulding, from which we quote as follows:- ity, without saying a word.

General Braddock had landed at the capes of Virginia, and proceeded to Williamsburgh, the seat of government, where he consulted with Governour Dinwiddie. He inquired for Colonel Washington, with whose character he was well acquainted, and expressed a wish to see him. On being informed of his resignation, and the cause, he is said to have exclaimed, that "he was a lad of sense and spirit, and had acted as became a soldier and a man of honour." He immediately wrote him a pressing invitation to assume the situation of volunteer aiddecamp, which involved no question of rank, and which, after consultation with his family, was accepted. Washington once more resumed his military career, by joining the British forces at Bel

haven.

These were shortly after reinforced by three companies of Virginia riflemen, raised by an act of the legislature, and consisting of as brave hardy spirits as ever drew a trigger. This accession made the army about two thousand strong, and with these, in the month of June, 1755, Braddock set forth in his march through the wilderness, from whence he and many others of his companions never returned.

The troops under Braddock marched in two divisions to the old station at the Little meadows. On the way, Washington was attacked by a fever, and became so ill, that the commanding officer insisted upon his remaining until the rear of the army came up under Colonel Dunbar. He consented, much against his will; but the instant he was able, pushed on and joined Braddock the evening before he fell into that fatal ambuscade, where he perished with many other gallant spirits, not in a blaze of glory, but in the obscurity of the dismal forests.

The consultation over, they proceeded onward through the deep woods, the order of march being changed, and the infantry in advance. When within about seven miles of Fort Duquesne, and passing through a narrow defile, a fire from some ambushed enemy arrested their march, and laid many a soldier dead on the ground. Nothing was seen but the smoke of the unerring rifle rising above the tops of the woods, and nothing heard but the report of the fatal weapons. There was a dead silence among the savages and their allies, who, masked behind the trees, were equally invisible with the great king of terrours, whose work they were performing.

The army of Braddock, and the general himself, were both taken by surprise, and the consequence was, a total neglect or forgetfulness of the proper mode of defence or attack,

The army of Braddock suffered a total defeat. The survivors retreated across the Monongahela, where they rested, and the general breathed his last. His gallant behaviour during the trying situa tion in which he was placed, and his death, which in some measure paid the penalty of his foolhardihood, have preserved to his memory some little respect, and for his fate perhaps more sympathy than it merited. He was one of those military men of little character and desperate fortune, which mother-countries are accustomed to send out, for the purpose of foraging in the rich fields of their colonies. He was succeeded in his command by Colonel Dunbar, who ordered all the stores, except such as were indispensably necessary, to be destroyed, and sought safety, with the remainder of his European troops, in the distant repose of the city of Philadelphia, where he placed the army in winterquarters in the dog-days, leaving Virginia to the protection of her gallant rangers.

Washington, on rejoining the army, urged upon General Braddock the necessity of increasing and incessant caution. He dwelt much on the silent, The conduct of the British troops on this occaunseen motions of the warriours of the woods, who sion, was, though perhaps natural in the terrible and come like birds on the wing, without being preceded untried situation in which they were placed, such as by any indications of their approach, or leaving a to excite the contempt of Washington and his protrace behind them. But the fate of Braddock was vincials, to whom the escape of the surviving regdecreed; or rather, his own conduct sealed that ulars was entirely owing. It was he and they that estiny which ever follows at the heels of folly and exclusively made head against the invisible enemy, inrudence. He despised the advice of wisdom and finally so checked his proceedings, as to secure and xperience, and bitterly did he suffer the penalty. a quiet retreat to a place of security. But for them, The lly pride of a British officer disdained the in all probability, scarce a man would have escaped, lesson a provincial youth, who had never fought The British officers behaved with great gallantry, no doubty plains of Flanders. There can be and upward of sixty of them were either killed or the superiority affected by the natives of Englan was one der those of the American colonies, silent yet effective causes of the

on the

Revolution.

The army

wounded; but the privates exhibited nothing but cowardice, confusion, and disobedience; and it seems quite probable that Washington here learned a secret which was of infinite service in his future

and then procel at Cumberland, for some days, career, by teaching him that British grenadiers were

to its ruin. Contrary to the ad- not invincible.

The provincial troops, on the contrary, according to the testimony of Washington, "behaved like men," to use his own language. Out of three companies that were in the action, but thirty survived. The regulars, on the contrary, ran away like sheep before hounds," leaving every thing to the mercy of the enemy. "When we endeavoured to rally them," continues Washington, in his letter to the governour of Virginia, "in hopes of regaining the ground we had lost, and what was left on it, it was with as little success, as if we had attempted to have stopped the wild bears of the mountain, or the rivulets with our feet."

[The Olive-Tree-Olea Europaea]

In the olive-yards of France, the olive-tree generally attains the height of eighteen or twenty-five feet, with a diameter of six inches to two feet. It ramifies at a small height, and forms a compact rounded summit. The foliage is of a pale, empoverished verdure, and the general appearance of the tree is not unlike that of a common willow which has been lopped, and which has acquired a new summit of three or four years growth.

the main stem without a foot-stalk, opposite and
alternate in the manner of the branches.
The olive is slow in blooming, as well as in every
function of vegetable life. The buds begin to ap-
pear about the middle of April, and the bloom is not
full before the end of May, or the beginning of June.

The flowers are small, white, slightly odoriferous, and disposed in axillary racemes or clusters. A peduncle about as long as the leaf, issues from its base, upon which the flowers are supported by secondary pedicles, like those of the common currant. Sometimes the clusters are almost as numerous as the leaves, and garnish the tree with wanton luxuriance; at others they are thinly scattered over the branches, or seen only at the extremity. It is essential to remark, that they are borne by the shoots of the preceding year.

The

The fruit of the olive is called by botanists a drupe. It is composed of pulpy matter enveloping a stone, or ligneous shell, containing a kernel. The olive is egg-shaped, pointed at the extremity, from six to ten lines in diameter, in one direction, and from ten to fifteen in the other; on the wild tree, it hardly exceeds the size of the red currant. skin is smooth, and, when ripe, of a violet colour; but in certain varieties, it is yellowish or red. The pulp is greenish, and the stone is oblong, pointed and divided into two cells, one of which is usually void. The oil of the olive is furnished by the pulp, which is a characteristick almost peculiar to this fruit; in other oleaginous vegetables, it is extracted from the seed. The young olives, set in June, increase in size, and remain green through the summer, begin to change colour early in October, and are ripe at the end of November, or in the beginning of December. On the wild-olive, five or six drupes are ripened upon each peduncle; but on the cultivated tree, a great part of the flowers are abortive, and the green fruit is cast at every stage of its growth, so that rarely more than one or two germes upon a cluster arrive at maturity.

From its resinous and oleaginous nature, the olivewood is eminently combustible, and burns as well before, as after it is dried. The value of its fruit renders this property unimportant. This tree may be multiplied by all the modes that are in use for the propagation of trees, and requires but little care in the cultivation, and produces fruit once in two years. This fruit, the modern Greeks, during Lent, eat in its ripe state, without any preparation, but a little pepper, or salt and oil.

The main limbs of the olive are numerously divided; the branches are opposite, and the pairs are But olives are chiefly cultivated for the sake of alternately placed upon conjugate axes of the limb. the oil that they produce, which is not a profitable The foliage is evergreen, but a part of it turns yel- article of commerce, but forms a principal one of low and falls in the summer, and in three years it is food to the inhabitants of the places where these completely renewed. In the spring or early autumn, trees are found. This oil is contained in the pulp the season when vegetation is in its greatest activ-only, as before observed, whereas other fruits have ity, the young leaves put forth immediately above it in the nut or kernel. It is obtained by sim-e the cicatrix of the former leaf-stalks, and are dis- pressure, in the following manner. The olives are tinguished by their suppleness, and by the freshness first bruised by a millstone, and afterward p into of their teint. The colour of their leaves varies in a sack, and then into the trough of a pres or the the different varieties of the olive, but they are gen- purpose, which, by means of turning a stro screw, erally smooth, and of a light green above, whitish forces all the strong liquor out, which is and somewhat downy, with a prominent rib beneath. oil. It is received in vessels half fille in earthen On most of the cultivated varieties, they are from from which it is taken off, and set hed afterward, fifteen lines to two inches long, and from six to jars. Several coarser kinds are ob twelve lines broad, narrow, with both ends acute, by adding hot water to the bruise even and whole at the edge, placed immediately on

led virgin with water,

Naturalist.