izen of Glasgow. His
correspondence from Virginia during his seven years' tenure of office
(1751-58) depicts the man with a vividness surpassing paint. He was as
honest as the day--as honest as he was fearless and fussy. But he had
no patience; he wanted things done and done at once, and his way was THE
way to do them. People who did not think as he thought didn't THINK
at all. On this drastic premise he went to work. There was of course
continuous friction between him and the House of Burgesses. Dinwiddie
had all a Scot's native talent for sarcasm. His letters, his addresses,
perhaps in particular his addresses to the House, bristled with
satirical thrusts at his opponents. If he had spelled out in full all
the words he was so eager to write, he would have been obliged to lessen
his output; so he used a shorthand system of his own, peculiar enough to
be remarkable even though abbreviations were the rule in that day. Even
the dignity of Kings he sacrificed to speed, and we find "His Majesty"
abbreviated to "H M'y"; yet a smaller luminary known as "His Honor"
fares better, losing only the last letter--"His Hono." "Ho." stands
for "house" and "yt" for "that," "what," "it," and "anything else," as
convenient. Many of his letters wind up with "I am ve'y much fatig'd."
We know that he must have been!

It was a formidable task that confronted Dinwiddie--to possess and
defend the Ohio. Christopher Gist returned in 1751, having surveyed the
valley for the Ohio Company as far as the Scioto and Miami rivers,
and in the following year the survey was ratified by the Indians.
The Company's men were busy blazing trails through the territory and
building fortified posts. But the French dominated the territory. They
had built and occupied with troops Fort Le Boeuf on French Creek, a
stream flowing into the Allegheny. We may imagine Dinwiddie's rage at
this violation of British soil by French soldiers and how he must have
sputtered to the young George Washington, when he summoned that officer
and made him the bearer of a letter to the French commander at Fort Le
Boeuf, to demand that French troops be at once withdrawn from the Ohio.

Washington made the journey to Fort Le Boeuf in December, 1753, but
the mission of course proved fruitless. Dinwiddie then wrote to London
urging that a force be sent over to help the colonies maintain their
rights and, under orders from the Crown, suggested by himself, he wrote
to the governors of all the