e in history
George Washington of Virginia. In December, 1753, in the dead of winter,
he made a long, toilsome journey from Virginia to the north through
snow and rain, by difficult forest trails, over two ranges of mountains,
across streams sometimes frozen, sometimes dangerous from treacherous
thaws. On the way he heard gossip from the Indians about the designs of
the French. They boasted that they would come in numbers like the sands
of the seashore; that the natives would be no more an obstacle to them
than the flies and mosquitoes, which indeed they resembled; and that not
the breadth of a finger-nail of land belonged to the Indians. Washington
was told by one of the French that "it was their absolute design to take
possession of the Ohio and, by--, they would do it!" It was no matter
that the French were outnumbered two to one by the English, for the
English were dilatory and ineffective.

In the end, Washington arrived at Fort Le Boeuf and presented a letter
from Dinwiddie, the Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, pointing out that
the British could not permit an armed force from Canada to invade their
territory of the Ohio and requiring that the French should leave the
country at once. Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, to whom this firm demand was
delivered, "an elderly gentleman," says Washington, with "much the air
of a soldier" gave, of course, a polite answer in the manner of his
nation, but he intended, he said, to remain where he was as long as
he had instructions so to do. Washington kept his eyes open and made
careful observations of the plan of the fort, the number of men, and
also of the canoes, of which he noted that there were more than two
hundred ready and many others building. The French tried to entice away
his Indians and he says, "I cannot say that ever in my life I suffered
so much anxiety." On the journey back he nearly perished when he fell
into an ice-cold stream and was obliged to spend the night on a tiny
island in frozen clothing. He brought comfort as cold to the waiting
Dinwiddie.

The French meanwhile were always a little ahead of the English in their
planning. Early in April, 1754, a French force of five or six hundred
men from Canada, which had set out while Quebec was still in the icy
grip of winter, reached the upper waters of the Ohio. They attacked
and destroyed a fort which the English had begun at the forks where now
stands Pittsburgh, and, in its place, began a formidable one, called