They had recently seen a chosen army from that country , which , reverencing as a mother , they had blindly believed invincible -- an army led by a chief who had been selected select from a crowd of trained warriors , for his rare military endowments , disgracefully routed route by a handful of French and Indians , and only saved save from annihilation by the coolness and spirit of a Virginian boy , whose riper fame has since diffused itself , with the steady influence of moral truth , to the uttermost confines of Christendom .