post at Niagara. (1750.) They even obtained leave to build a fort and trading house on the borders of the Mohawk country. Alarmed for the fidelity of the Six Nations, who never had recognized the claim of English dominion, Clinton, governor of New York, proposed a new treaty, in which he invited all the colonies to participate. (1751.) Only Massachusetts, Connecticut, and South Carolina chose to incur the expense. The French built vessels of unusual force at Fort Frontenac. They entered into friendly relations with those bands of Delawares and Shawanese whom the pressure of new settlements in Pennsylvania had lately driven from the Susquehanna toward the Ohio, and to whom the operations of the Ohio Company, in the establishment of a post and trading house at Redstone, now Brownsville, on the Monongahela, had given great offense. The Marquis Du Quesne, Jonquiere's successor as governor-general, followed up the same policy. A band of the Miamies, or Twigties, as the English called them, settled at Sandusky, having refused to remove to Detroit, and persisting in trade with the English, their village was burned. The English traders were seized, and their merchandise confiscated. Early the next year, twelve hundred men from Montreal built a fort at Presque Isle, now Erie, on the southern shore of the lake of that name. Crossing thence to the waters flowing south, they established posts at La Bœuf and Venango, the one on French Creek, the other on the main stream of the Allegany, which meets the Monongahela flowing north, and unites with it to form the Ohio. (1753.)

The Board of Trade reported to the king that, "as the French had not the least pretense of right to the territory on the Ohio, an important river rising in Pennsylvania and running through Virginia, it was matter of wonder what such a strange expedition, in time of peace, could mean, unless to complete the object so long in view, of conjoining the St. Lawrence with the Mississippi." Lord Holderness, successor to the Duke of Bedford, as Secretary of State, dispatched orders to the governors of Pennsylvania and Virginia, to repel force by force, "whenever the French were found within the undoubted limits of their provinces." (1749.) After remaining for three years in the hands of Thomas Lee and Lewis Burwell, successive presidents of the council, the

government of Virginia had passed to Robert Dinwiddie, as lieutenant-governor, a Scotsman of ability, surveyor-general of the colonial customs, and previously a counselor, but not possessed of that suavity of manners for which Gouch, his predecessor, had been distinguished. Observing with anxiety and alarm the movements of the French, Dinwiddie held a treaty with the Indian bands on the Monongahela, from whom he purchased permission to build a fort at the junction of that river with the Alleghany. He resolved, also to send a message to the nearest French post, to demand explanations, and the release and indemnification of the captured traders. As bearer of this message he selected George Washington, a native of Westmoreland county, on the Potomac, where his ancestors had been planters for three generations. The paternal inheritance, by the law of primogeniture, having passed to his eldest brother, the young Washington, a major in the militia, followed the lucrative but laborious profession of a land surveyor in the Northern Neck, now the property of Lord Fairfax. Though not yet twenty-two, already he gave evidence of that rarest of combinations, a sound judg ment, with courage, enterprise, and capacity for action.

After a dangerous winter's journey of four hundred miles, with only four or five attendants, the greater part of the way through uninhabited forests, Washington reached the French post at Venango, where he was received with characteristic politeness. Joncaire, the commander, promised to transmit Dinwiddie's message to his superiors in Canada, under whose orders he acted; but the French officers, over their cups, made no secret to Washington of the intention entertained by the French government permanently to occupy all that country. (1753.)

During Washington's absence, Dinwiddie applied to the Assembly for funds; but he found that Body in a very bad humor. With the consent of the Board of Trade, a fee had recently been imposed on the issue of patents for lands-a practice long established in other colonies, but hitherto unknown in Virginia. The House of Burgesses paid no attention to Dinwiddie's complaint of French encroachments and call for money. Wholly engrossed by the affair of the ob noxious fee, they resolved that whosoever paid it, ought to be regarded as betraying the rights of the people; and they

sent to England, as bearer of their complaints, Peyton Randolph, attorney-general of the province, twenty years after president of the Continental Congress, to whom they voted a salary of £2,000, out of the provineial funds in the hands of the speaker.

Notwithstanding this disappointment, Dinwiddie enlisted a captain's command, and sent them to build a fort at the junction of the Alleghany and the Monongahela. The western boundary of Pennsylvania was not yet run. It was uncertain whether the head of the Ohio fell within that province; if not, it was claimed as appertaining to Virginia.

As soldiers could not be supported without money, Dinwiddie called on the neighboring colonies for aid, and presently again summoned the Virginia Assembly. Washington had now returned. The designs of the French were obvious, and the Assembly granted £10,000 toward the defense of the frontiers. A committee of the burgesses was appointed to act in concert with the governor in the expenditure of this money-an "encroachment on the prerogative," to which, from necessity, Dinwiddie reluctantly submitted.

Urged by Governor Hamilton to take measures to withstand the intrusions of the French, the Assembly of Pennsylvania offered supplies in paper money. But to this, Hamilton, by his instructions, could not assent, at least not without a suspending clause of reference to England, to which the Assembly would not agree. (1754.)

Again urged to co-operate with Virginia, the Assembly passed a new bill for paper money supplies, which the governor again rejected. Some members of the Assembly-and the same was presently the case in New York-expressed doubts if the crown actually had any claim to the territory on which the French were said to be encroaching. Governor Glen, of South Carolina, doubted too. But any such doubts were regarded by the zealous Dinwiddie as little short of treason. In New York also, as well as in Virginia and Pennsylvania, internal disputes distracted attention from the designs of the French. Clinton had resigned, wearied out by ineffectual struggles against Delancey, who had been joined, also, by Colden, and whom the united influence of Alexander, Smith, and Johnson, lately raised to the council, was not sufficient to overmatch. His successor, Sir Danvers

Osborne, came from England charged to rebuke the Assembly, and to re-establish the executive authority. His friends had obtained for him this appointment, hoping that business and a change of scene might enable him to throw off a fit of melancholy under which he was laboring. But the hopelessness of the task he had assumed so aggravated his disorder, that, within five days after his arrival, he committed suicide.

It fell to Delancey, as lieutenant-governor, to which dignity he had just been raised, to lay Osborne's instructions before the Assembly. An address to the king and a representation to the Board of Trade, indignantly denied the imputations of turbulence and disloyalty; but all the arts of Delancey were exhausted in vain, to move the Assembly from their policy of annual votes. The most he could obtain was, that money once voted, should be drawn out of the treasury on the order of the governor and council, and a promise not to interfere with executive matters.

The government of Maryland had recently been conferred on Horatio Sharpe, a military officer; but a quarrel about supplies, similar to that in Pennsylvania, prevented the aid which Dinwiddie had asked.

North Carolina alone, of all the colonies applied to, responded promptly, by voting a regiment of four hundred and fifty men. The temporary administration of that province was held by Michael Rowan, as president of the council, who availed himself of this opportunity to consent to a new issue of paper money. But these North Carolina troops proved of little use. By the time they reached Winchester, in Virginia, the greater part had disbanded on some doubts as to their pay, the appropriation for that purpose being already exhausted.

A regiment of six hundred men had been enlisted in Virginia, of which Frye was appointed Colonel, and Washington lieutenant-colonel. To encourage enlistment, Dinwiddie promised two hundred thousand acres of land to be divided among the officers and soldiers. Two independent companies from New York, and another from South Carolina were ordered to Virginia to assist in the operations against the French.

The Virginia troops, on their march to the frontier, encountered abundance of difficulties. Very little disposition was shown to facilitate their progress. It was only by impressment that means could be obtained to transport the baggage and stores. By slow and toilsome steps, the troops made their way to Will's Creek, on the Potomac, where they were met by alarming intelligence. The French, under Contrecœur, had descended in force from Venango, and, having sent off Dinwiddie's soldiers, who were building a fort at the head of the Ohio, they had themselves seized that important spot and commenced a fort, which they called Du Quesne, after the Governor-General.

A detachment under Washington hastily sent forward to reconnoiter, just before reaching Redstone, at a place called the Great Meadows, encountered a French party, which Washington attacked by surprise, and whose commander, Jumonville, was killed-the first blood shed in this war.

By Frye's death, the chief command devolved on Washington. He was soon joined by the rest of the troops, and, having erected a stockade at the Great Meadows, called Fort Necessity, pushed on toward Du Quesne. The approach of a much superior force under M. de Villier, brother of Jumonville, obliged him to fall back to Fort Necessity. His troops were fatigued, discouraged, and short of provisions; and, after a day's fighting, he agreed to give up the fort, and to retire with his arms and baggage. Washington did not know French; his interpreter, a Dutchman, was ignorant or treacherous, and the articles of capitulation were made to contain an express acknowledgment of the "assassination" of Jumonville. Having retired to Will's Creek, Washington's troops assisted in the erection of Fort Cumberland, which now became the westernmost English post.

At the same time, with his orders to Virginia and Pennsylvania, Holderness had addressed a circular letter to all the colonies, proposing a convention at Albany of committees from the several colonial Assemblies, to renew the treaty with the Six Nations, whose friendship at this crisis, was of great importance. Agreeably to his recommendation, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the four New England colonies, appointed committees. While Washington was operating toward the Monongahela, this convention met,