British provinces were desirous to stop
their incursions, or at any rate to protest against their invasion.

We chose to hold our American colonies by a law that was at least
convenient for its framers. The maxim was, that whoever possessed the
coast had a right to all the territory inland as far as the Pacific; so
that the British charters only laid down the limits of the colonies from
north to south, leaving them quite free from east to west. The French,
meanwhile, had their colonies to the north and south, and aimed at
connecting them by the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence and the great
intermediate lakes and waters lying to the westward of the British
possessions. In the year 1748, though peace was signed between the
two European kingdoms, the colonial question remained unsettled, to be
opened again when either party should be strong enough to urge it. In
the year 1753, it came to an issue, on the Ohio river, where the British
and French settlers met. To be sure, there existed other people besides
French and British, who thought they had a title to the territory about
which the children of their White Fathers were battling, namely, the
native Indians and proprietors of the soil. But the logicians of St.
James's and Versailles wisely chose to consider the matter in dispute
as a European and not a Red-man's question, eliminating him from the
argument, but employing his tomahawk as it might serve the turn of
either litigant.

A company, called the Ohio Company, having grants from the Virginia
government of lands along that river, found themselves invaded in their
settlements by French military detachments, who roughly ejected the
Britons from their holdings. These latter applied for protection to Mr.
Dinwiddie, Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, who determined upon sending
an ambassador to the French commanding officer on the Ohio, demanding
that the French should desist from their inroads upon the territories of
his Majesty King George.

Young Mr. Washington jumped eagerly at the chance of distinction which
this service afforded him, and volunteered to leave his home and his
rural and professional pursuits in Virginia, to carry the governor's
message to the French officer. Taking a guide, an interpreter, and a
few attendants, and following the Indian tracks, in the fall of the year
1753, the intrepid young envoy made his way from Williamsburg almost
to the shores of Lake Erie, and found the French commander at Fort