ted to fight to vindicate the nation's honor. The popular
conversation was a declaration of war against the French.

The British Government was not long in framing instructions to the
American Colonies, and orders were issued that they should unite in one
confederacy and drive the French out of the land. The king directed
Governor Dinwiddie to raise a force in Virginia, and the order was
received with great enthusiasm. Washington was appointed to push
recruiting, with headquarters at Alexandria. New York and South Carolina
pledged two independent companies.

Washington anticipated a rush of volunteers when the governor sent out
his call for troops, but the small pay offered did not induce the
stalwart yeomanry, and other reliable classes, to relinquish their
honorable occupations at home for the hunger and hardships of war. The
result was, that a very unreliable class offered to enlist. One writer
says:

"There gathered about him a rabble of ragamuffins and worthless fellows,
who had spent their lives in tramping up and down the country, without
settled homes or occupations. Some were without hats and shoes; some had
coats and no shirts, some had shirts and no coats; and all were without
arms, or any keen desire to use them if they had them. All this
disgusted and disheartened our youthful colonel not a little, for he was
young, and had yet to learn that it is of just such stuff that the
beginnings of armies are always made."

Washington wrote to Governor Dinwiddie in a very desponding tone,
complaining of the want of patriotism in the Colony. Immediately the
governor came to his relief by issuing a proclamation, in which he said:

"Two hundred thousand acres of the very best land on the head-water of
the Ohio will be appropriated, and divided among those who enlist and
serve during the war."

The effect of this order was good, and soon one company was raised and
sent forward, under Captain Trent, to occupy the junction of the
Monongahela and Alleghany Rivers, and there erect a fort, before the
French could possess it. This was the spot which Washington recommended
to Governor Dinwiddie as an admirable location for a fort.

When the work of recruiting was completed, the governor offered the
command of the whole force to Washington, although Colonel Fry was
entitled to it by right of seniority. Such was Washington's popularity,
that Governor Dinwiddie knew the people would hail the appointment with
unfeigned sati