colony of one hundred families should be established in the district, and that the territory should be immediately selected.

But the French were equally active. Before the Ohio Company could send out a colony, the governor of Canada despatched Bienville with three hundred men to explore and occupy the valley of the Ohio. The expedition was successful. Plates of lead bearing French inscriptions were buried here and there on both banks of the river, the region was explored as far west as the towns of the Miamis, the English traders were expelled from the country, and a letter was written to Governor Hamilton of Pennsylvania admonishing him to encroach no farther on the territory of the king of France. This work occupied the summer and fall of 1749. In the mean time, the Ohio Company had equipped an exploring party, and placed it under command of Christopher Gist. In November of 1750 he and his company reached the Ohio opposite the month of Beaver Creek. Here the expedition crossed to the northern side, tarried at Logstown, passed down the river through the several Indian confederacies to the Great Miami, and thence to within fifteen miles of the falls at Louisville. Returning on foot through Kentucky, the explorers reached Virginia in the spring of 1751.

This expedition was followed by still more vigorous movements on the part of the French. Descending from their headquarters at Presque Isle, now Erie, on the southern shore of the lake, they built a fortress called Le Boeuf, on French Creek, a tributary of the Alleghany. Proceeding down the stream to its junction with the river, they erected a second fort, named Venango. From this point they advanced against a

British

post on the Miami, broke up the

settlement, made prisoners of

the garrison and carried them to Canada. The king of the Miami confederacy, who had assisted the English in defending their outpost, was inhumanly murdered by the Indian allies of the French.

About the

same time the country south of the Ohio, between the Great Kanawha and the Monongahela, was explored by Gist and a party of armed surveyors, acting under orders of the company. In the summer of 1753 the English opened a road from Will's Creek through the mountains into the Ohio valley, and a colony of eleven families was planted on the Youghiogheny, just west of Laurel Hill. It was impossible that a conflict between the advancing settlements of the two nations could be much longer

averted.

pect.

The Indian nations were greatly alarmed at the threatening pros-
Solemn councils were held among all the tribes, and the affairs of

first the Red men rather favored the English cause, but their allegiance the race were gravely discussed by the copper-colored orators. From the

was wavering and uncertain. After the murder of the Miami chieftain their hostility to the French became more decided. When, in the spring of 1753, the news was borne to the council-fires on the Ohio that Du Quesne, the governor of Canada, had despatched a company of twelve hundred men to descend the Alleghany and colonize the country, the jealousy of the natives was kindled into open resistance. The tribes most concerned were the Delawares, the Shawnees, the Miamis and the Mingoes. The chieftain of this confederacy, named Tanacharisson, was called the Half-King from the fact that his subjects, except the Miamis, owed a kind of indefinite allegiance to the Iroquois or Six Nations. By the authority of a great council held at Logstown the Half-King was now sent to Erie to remonstrate with the French commandant against a further invasion of the Indian country. "The land is mine, and I will have it," replied the Frenchman, with derision and contempt. The insulted sachem returned to his nation to lift the hatchet against the enemies of his people. It was at this time that the chiefs of many tribes met Benjamin Franklin at the town of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and formed a treaty of alliance with the English.

Virginia was now thoroughly aroused. But before proceeding to actual hostilities, Governor Dinwiddie determined to try the effect of a final remonstrance with the French. A paper was accordingly drawn up setting forth the nature and extent of the English claim to the valley of the Ohio, and solemnly warning the authorities of France against further intrusion into that region. It was necessary that this paper should be carried to General St. Pierre, now stationed at Erie as commander of the French forces in the West. Who should be chosen to bear the important parchment to its far-off destination? It was the most serious mission ever yet undertaken in America. A young surveyor, named GEORGE WASHINGTON, was called to perform the perilous duty. Him the governor summoned from his home on the Potomac and commissioned as ambassador, and to him was committed the message which was to be borne from Williamsburg, on York River, through the untrodden wilderness to Presque Isle, on the shore of Lake Erie.

On the last day of October, 1753, Washington set out on his long journey. He was attended by four comrades besides an interpreter and Christopher Gist, the guide. The party arrived without accident at the mouth of Will's Creek, the last important tributary of the Potomac on the north. From this place Washington proceeded through the mountains to the head-waters of the Youghiogheny, and thence down that stream to the site of Pittsburg. The immense importance of this place, lying at the confluence of the two great tributaries of the Ohio, and com

LERIE

Presque (Eric).

Toeuf
(Waterford)

NEW

YORK

Allegheny

Venango (Franklin)

PENNSYLVA

aLogstown

Duquesne (Pittsburgh)

Braddock's Battle Field

F.Necessity
Great
Meadows
Cumberland

Will's C

Harrisburg

Susa

manding them both, was at once perceived by the young ambassador, who noted the spot as the site of a fortress. Washington was now conducted across the Alleghany by the chief of the Delawares, and thence twenty miles down the river to Logstown. Here a council was held with the Indians, who renewed their pledges of friendship and fidelity to the English. The emissaries of the French were already in the country trying in every conceivable way to entice the Red men into an alliance; but every proposal was rejected. In the beginning of December, Washington and his party moved northward to the French post at Venango. The officers of the fort took no pains to conceal their purpose; the project of

VI

M Ꭺ R

MILES 30 GO

Williamsbur

GU 120 150 180 210 240 270 300

FIRST SCENE OF THE FRENCH AND
INDIAN WAR, 1750.

uniting
Canada and Louisiana by
way of the Ohio valley was openly avowed.

From Venango, Washington set out through the forest to Fort le Boeuf on French Creek, fifty miles above its junction with the Alleghany. This was the last stage in the journey. It was still fourteen miles to Presque Isle; but St. Pierre, the French commander, had come down from that place to superintend the fortifications at Le Boeuf. Here the conference was held. Washington was received with great courtesy, but the general of the French refused to enter into any discussion on the rights of nations. He was acting, he said, under military instructions given by the governor of New France. He had been commanded by his superior officer to eject every Englishman from the valley of the Ohio, and he meant to carry out his orders to the letter. A firm but courteous reply was returned to Governor Dinwiddie's message. France claimed the country of the Ohio in virtue of discovery, exploration and occupation, and her claim should be made good by force of arms.

Washington was kindly dismissed, but not until he had noted with

keen anxiety the immense preparations which were making at Le Bœuf.

There lay

boats of pine ready to descend the river to the site of Pittsburg. For the

a fleet of fifty birch-bark canoes and a hundred and seventy

French,

as well as the English, had noted the importance of that spot,

and had determined to fortify it as soon as the ice should break in the

rivers.

It was now the dead of winter. Washington returned to Ve

nango, and then, with Gist as his sole companion, left the river and struck into the woods. It was one of the most solitary marches ever made by man. There in the desolate wilderness was the future President of the United States. Clad in the robe of an Indian, with gun in hand and knapsack strapped to his shoulders; struggling through interminable snows; sleeping with frozen clothes on a bed of pine-brush; breaking through the treacherous ice of rapid streams; guided by day by a pocket compass, and at night by the North Star, seen at intervals through the leafless trees; fired at by a prowling savage from his covert not fifteen steps away; thrown from a raft into the rushing Alleghany; escaping to an island and lodging there until the river was frozen over; plunging again into the forest; reaching Gist's settlement and then the Potomac,the strong-limbed young ambassador came back without wound or scar to the capital of Virginia. For his flesh was not made to be torn with bullets or to be eaten by the wolves. The defiant despatch of St. Pierre was laid before Governor Dinwiddie, and the first public service of Washington was accomplished.

In the mean time, the Ohio Company had not been idle. About mid-winter a party of thirty-three men had been organized and placed under command of Trent, with orders to proceed at once to the source of the Ohio and erect a fort. The company must have been marching to its destination when Washington returned to Virginia. It was not far from the middle of March, 1754, when Trent's party reached the confluence of the Alleghany and the Monongahela, and built the first rude stockade on the site of Pittsburg.* After all the threats and boasting of the French, the English had beaten them and seized the key to the Ohio valley.

But it was a short-lived triumph. As soon as the approaching spring broke the ice-gorges in the Alleghany, the French fleet of boats, already prepared at Venango, came sweeping down the river. It was in vain for Trent with his handful of men to offer resistance. Washington had now been commissioned as lieutenant-colonel, and was stationed at Alexandria to enlist recruits for the Ohio. A regiment of a hundred and fifty men had been enrolled; but it was impossible to bring succor to Trent in time to save the post. On the 17th of April the little band of Englishmen at the head of the Ohio surrendered to the enemy and withdrew from the country. The French immediately occupied the place, felled the forest-trees, built barracks and laid the foundations of FORT DU QUESNE. To recapture this place by force of arms Colonel Washington set out from Will's Creek in the early part of May, 1754. Nego*The accounts of this important event are very obscure and unsatisfactory.

tiations had failed; remonstrance had been tried in vain; the possession of the disputed territory was now to be determined by the harsher methods

of war.

CHAPTER XXXI.

CAMPAIGNS OF WASHINGTON AND BRADDOCK.

WASHINGTON now found himself in command of a little army of

Virginians. His commission was brief and easily understood: To construct a fort at the source of the Ohio; to destroy whoever opposed him in the work; to capture, kill or repel all who interrupted the progress of the English settlements in that country. In the month of April the young commander left Will's Creek, but the march westward was slow and toilsome. The men were obliged to drag their cannons. The roads were miserable; rain fell in torrents on the tentless soldiers; rivers were

bridgeless; provisions insufficient. All the while the faithful Half-King was urging Washington by repeated despatches to hasten to the rescue of

the Red men.

On the 26th of May the English regiment reached the Great Meadows. Here Washington was informed that a company of French

was

on the march to attack him. The enemy had been seen on the

Youghiogheny only a few miles distant. A stockade was immediately erected, to which the commander gave the appropriate name of Fort Necessity. Ascertaining from the scouts of the Half-King that the French company in the neighborhood was only a scouting-party, Washington, after conference with the Mingo chiefs, determined to strike the first blow. Two Indians followed the trail of the French, and discovered their hidingplace in a rocky ravine. The English advanced cautiously, intending to surprise and capture the whole force; but the French were on the alert,

saw

Washington with "Fire!" was the clear

the approaching soldiers and flew to arms. musket in hand was at the head of his company. command that rang through the forest, and the first volley of a great war went flying on its mission of death.

The engagement was brief and

decisive. Jumonville, the leader of the French, and ten of his party were killed, and twenty-one were made prisoners.

A month of precious time was now lost in delays. While Washing

ton at Fort Necessity waited in vain for reinforcements, the French at