ander of the English troops. It was accompanied by a plan of the
fort. "There are two hundred men here," writes he, "and two hundred
expected; the rest have gone off in detachments to the amount of one
thousand, besides Indians. None lodge in the fort but Contrecoeur and
the guard, consisting of forty men and five officers; the rest lodge
in bark cabins around the fort. The Indians have access day and night,
and come and go when they please. If one hundred trusty Shawnees,
Mingoes, and Delawares were picked out, they might surprise the fort,
lodging themselves under the palisades by day, and at night secure the
guard with their tomahawks, shut the sally-gate, and the fort is
ours."

The Indian messenger carried the letter to Aughquick and delivered it
into the hands of George Croghan. The Indian chiefs who were with him
insisted upon his opening it. He did so, but on finding the tenor of
it, transmitted it to the governor of Pennsylvania. The secret
information communicated by Stobo may have been the cause of a project
suddenly conceived by Governor Dinwiddie, of a detachment which, by a
forced march across the mountains, might descend upon the French and
take Fort Duquesne at a single blow; or, failing that, might build a
rival fort in its vicinity. He accordingly wrote to Washington to
march forthwith for Wills' Creek, with such companies as were
complete, leaving orders with the officers to follow as soon as they
should have enlisted men sufficient to make up their companies.

The ignorance of Dinwiddie in military affairs and his want of
forecast, led him perpetually into blunders. Washington saw the
rashness of an attempt to dispossess the French with a force so
inferior that it could be harassed and driven from place to place at
their pleasure. Before the troops could be collected, and munitions of
war provided, the season would be too far advanced. There would be no
forage for the horses; the streams would be swollen and unfordable;
the mountains rendered impassable by snow, and frost, and slippery
roads.

Such are a few of the cogent reasons urged by Washington in a letter
to his friend William Fairfax, then in the House of Burgesses, which
no doubt was shown to Governor Dinwiddie, and probably had an effect
in causing the rash project to be abandoned.

In the month of October the House of Burgesses made a grant of twenty
thousand pounds for the public service; and ten thousand more were
sent out from Engla