THE VIRGINIAN GOVERNOR'S ENVOY
A thousand vague rumors came over the mountains to Governor Dinwiddie of
Virginia in 1753, of French aggressions on the upper Ohio, the more
alarming because vague and uncertain.
Orders were now at hand from London, authorizing the erection of a fort
on the Ohio to hold that river for England and conciliate the Indians to
English rule. But the governor was too much in the dark as to the
operations of the French to warrant any decisive step, and he
immediately looked about him for a person whom he could trust to find
out what was really happening in the Ohio valley.
Who was to be this envoy? The mission called for a person of unusual
capacity: a diplomat, a soldier, and a frontiersman. There were five
hundred miles to be threaded on Indian trails in the dead of winter.
This was woodsman's work. There were cunning Indian chieftains and
French officers, trained in intrigue, to be met, conciliated,
influenced. This, truly, demanded a diplomat. There were forts to be
marked and mapped, highways of approach to be considered and compared,
vantage sites on river and mountain to be noted and valued. This was
work for a soldier and strategist.
After failing to induce one or two gentlemen to undertake this perilous
but intrinsically important task, a youthful Major, George Washington,
one of the four adjutant-generals of Virginia, offered his services, and
the despairing Scotch governor, whose zeal always approached rashness,
accepted them.
But there was something more to the credit of this ambitious youth than
his temerity. The best of Virginian blood ran in his veins and he had
already shown a taste for adventurous service quite in line with such a
hazardous business. Acquiring, when a mere lad, a knowledge of
mathematics, he had gone surveying in Lord Fairfax's lands on the south
branch of the Potomac. There he spent the best of three years, far
beyond the settled limits of Virginia, fortifying his splendid physique
against days of stress to come. In other ways this life on his country's
frontier was of advantage. Here he met the Indian--that race over which
no man ever wielded a greater influence than Washington. Here he came to
know frontier life, its charms, its deprivations, its fears, and its
toils--a life for which he was ever to entertain so much sympathy and so
much consideration. Here he studied the Indian traders, a class of men
of much more importance, in peace or war, than any or all others in the
border land--men whose motives of action were as hard to read as an
Indian's, and whose flagrant and oft practiced deceptions on their
fellow white men were fraught with disaster. It was of utmost fortune
for his country that this youth went into the West in his teens, for he
was to be, under Providence, a champion of that West worthy of its
influence on human affairs. Thus he came to it early and loved it; he
learned to know its value, to foresee something of its future, to think
for and with its pioneer developers, to study its roads and rivers and
portages; thus he was fortified against narrow purposes, and made as
broad in his sympathies and ambitions as the great West was broad
itself. No statesman of his day knew and believed in the West as
Washington did; and it is not difficult to think that had he not so
known and loved it, the territory west of the Alleghany Mountains would
never have become a portion of the United States of America. There were
far too many serious men like Thomas Jefferson who knew little about the
West and boasted that they cared less. Yet today the seaboard states are
more dependent commercially and politically on the states between the
Alleghanies and Mississippi than these central commonwealths are on
them.
The same divine Providence which directed this youth's steps into the
Alleghanies had brought him speedily to his next post of duty, for
family influence secured him an appointment as adjutant-general (with
rank of major) over one of the four military districts into which
Virginia was now divided for purposes of defense, a position for which
he was as fitted by inclination as by frontier experience.
This lad now received Dinwiddie's appointment. As a practical surveyor
in the wilderness he possessed frontiersman's qualifications; as an apt
and diligent student of military science, with a brother--trained under
Admiral Vernon--as a practical tutor, he had in a degree a soldier's
qualifications; if not a diplomat he was as shrewd a lad as chivalrous
old Virginia had within her borders, still, at twenty-one, that boy of
the sixty maxims, but hardened, steadied and made exceeding thoughtful
by his life on Virginia's great black forest-bound horizon. All in all,
he was far better fitted for this mission than any one could have known
or guessed. His keen eye, quick perception, and daring spirit were now
to be turned to something of more moment than links and chains or a
shabby line of Virginian militia.
It is not to be doubted that George Washington knew the danger he
courted, at least very much better than we can appreciate it today. He
had not lived three years on the frontier for nothing. He had heard of
these French--of their bold invasion of the West, their growing trade,
their cunning conciliation of the Indian, their sudden passion for fort
building when they heard of the grant of land to the Ohio Company, to
which his brothers belonged. Let who can doubt that he looked with
envious eyes upon those fearless fleets of coureurs-de-bois and their
woodland pilgrimaging. Who can doubt that the few stolid English traders
who went over the mountains on poor Indian ponies made a sorry showing
beside these roistering, picturesque, irrepressible Frenchmen who knew
and sailed the sweet rivers of the great West? But the forests were
filled with their sly, red-skinned proselytes. One swift rifle ball
might easily be sent from a hidden covert to meet the stripling envoy
from the English who was come to spy out the land and report both its
giants and its grapes. Yet, after one day's preparation, he was ready to
leave a home, rich in comfort and culture, a host of warm friends, and
bury himself five hundred miles deep in the western forests, to sleep
on the ground in the dead of winter, wade in rivers running with ice,
and face a hundred known and a thousand unknown risks.
"Faith, you're a brave lad," broke out the old Scotch governor, "and, if
you play your cards well, you shall have no cause to repent your
bargain," and Major Washington departed from Williamsburg on the last
day of October but one, 1753. The first sentence in the _Journal_ he now
began suggests his zeal and promptness: "I was commissioned and
appointed by the Honourable _Robert Dinnwiddie_, Esq; Governor, _&c_ of
_Virginia_, to visit and deliver a Letter to the Commandant of the
_French_ Forces on the _Ohio_, and set out on the intended Journey the
same Day." At Fredericksburg he employed his old fencing tutor Jacob van
Braam as his interpreter and pushed on westward over the trail used by
the Ohio Company to Wills Creek (Cumberland, Maryland) on the upper
Potomac, where he arrived November 14.
Wills Creek was the last Virginian outpost, where Fort Cumberland was
soon erected. Already the Ohio Company had located a storehouse at this
point. Onward the Indian trail wound in and out through the Alleghanies,
over the successive ranges known as Wills, Savage, and Meadow Mountains.
From the latter it dropped down into Little Meadows. Here in the open
ground, covered with rank grasses, the first of the western water was
crossed, a branch of the Youghiogheny river. From "Little Crossings," as
the ford was called, the narrow trail vaulted Negro Mountain and came
down upon the upper Youghiogheny, this ford here being named "Big
Crossings." Another climb over Briery Mountain brought the traveler down
into Great Meadows, the largest tract of open land in the Alleghanies.
By a zigzag climb of five miles the summit of the last of the Alleghany
ranges--Laurel Hill--was reached, where the path turned northward and
followed the line of hills, by Christopher Gist's clearing on what is
known as Mount Braddock, toward the lower Youghiogheny, and forded at
"Stewart's Crossing." Thence the trail ran down the point of land where
Pittsburg now lies between the "Forks of the Ohio."
[Illustration: WASHINGTON'S ROAD]
Christopher Gist, whom Washington engaged as guide, knew well this "Road
of Iron" through the mountain, and perhaps was the first white man to
travel it who left record of it. On July 16, 1751, he had been
commissioned by the committee of the Ohio Company to visit their grant
of land in the West, and, among other things, "to look out & observe the
nearest & most convenient Road you can find from the Company's Store at
Will's Creek to a Landing at Mohongeyela."[1] The path started from the
buildings Hugh Parker had erected for the Ohio Company in 1750 on land
purchased from Lord Fairfax.[2] It followed the course outlined to
Laurel Hill; here it left what was perhaps the main trail to the Ohio,
and bore westward to the Monongahela river which it touched at Redstone
Old Fort (Brownsville, Pa.) It was the course of the shortest portage
between the Potomac and Monongahela.
It was the main trail to the Ohio over which Gist now guided the young
envoy. This path had no name until it took that of a Delaware Indian,
Nemacolin, who blazed its course, under the direction of Captain Thomas
Cresap, for the Ohio Company. To those who love to look back to
beginnings, and read great things in small, this Indian path, with its
border of wounded trees, leading across the first great divide into the
Central West, is worthy of contemplation. Each tree starred white by the
Indian's ax spoke of Saxon conquest and commerce, one and inseparable.
In every act of the great world-drama now on the boards, this little
trail with its blazed trees lies in the foreground.
And the rise of the curtain shows the lad Washington and his party of
seven horsemen, led by the bold guide Christopher Gist, setting out from
Wills Creek on the 15th of November, 1753. The character of the journey
is nowhere better described than in Washington's words when he engaged
Gist's services: "I engaged Mr _Gist_ to pilot us out."
It proved a rough voyage! A fierce, early winter came out of the north,
as though in league with the French to intimidate, if not drive back,
these spies of French aggression. It rained and snowed, and the little
pathway became well-nigh impassable. The brown mountain ranges, which
until recently had been burnished with the glory of a mountain autumn,
were wet and black. Scarce eighteen miles were covered a day, a whole
week being exhausted in reaching the Monongahela. But this was not
altogether unfortunate. A week was not too long for the future Father of
the West to study the hills and valleys which were to bear forever the
precious favor of his devoted and untiring zeal. And in this week this
youth conceived a dream and a purpose, the dearest, if not the most
dominant, of his life--the union, commercial as well as political, of
the East and the West. Yet he passed Great Meadows without seeing Fort
Necessity, Braddock's Run without seeing Braddock's unmarked grave, and
Laurel Hill without a premonition of the covert in the valley below,
where shortly he should shape the stones above a Frenchman's grave. But
could he have seen it all--the wasted labor, nights spent in agony of
suspense, humiliation, defeat, and the dead and dying--would it have
turned him back?
The first roof to offer Washington hospitable shelter was the cabin of
the trader Frazier at the mouth of Turtle creek, on the Monongahela,
near the death-trap where soon that desperate handful of French and
Indians should put to flight an army of five times its own number. Here
information was at hand, for it was none other than this Frazier who had
been driven from Venango but a few weeks before by the French force sent
there to build a fort. Joncaire was spending the winter in Frazier's old
cabin, and no doubt the young Virginian heard this irrepressible French
officer's title read clear in strong English oaths. Here too was a
"Speech," with a string of wampum accompanying, on its way from a few
anti-French Indians on the Ohio to Governor Dinwiddie, bringing the
ominous news that the Chippewas, Ottawas, and Wyandots had taken up the
hatchet against the English.
Washington took the Speech and the wampum--and pushed on undismayed.
Sending the baggage down the Monongahela by boat, he traveled on
overland to the "Forks," where he chose a site for a fort, the future
site, first, of Fort Duquesne, and later, Fort Pitt. But his immediate
destination was the Indian village of Logstown, fifteen miles down the
Ohio. On his way thither he stopped at the lodge of Shingiss, a Delaware
king, and secured the promise of his attendance upon the council of
anti-French (though not necessarily pro-English) Indians. For this was
the Virginian envoy's first task--to make a strong bid for the
allegiance of the red men; it was not more than suggested in his
instructions, but was none the less imperative, as he well knew whether
his superiors did or not.
It is extremely difficult to construct anything like a clear statement
of Indian affiliations at this crisis. This territory west of the
Alleghanies, nominally purchased from the Six Nations, was claimed by
the Shawanese and Delawares who, as we have seen, had come into it, and
also by many fugitives from the Six Nations, known generally as
Mingoes, who had come to make their hunting ground their home. Though
the Delaware king was only a "Half King" (because subject to the Council
of the Six Nations) yet they claimed the land and had even resisted
French encroachment. "Half King" and his Delawares believed the English
only desired commercial intercourse and favored them as compared with
the French who had already built forts in the West. The northern nations
who were nearer the French soon surrendered to their blandishments; and
soon the Delawares and the Shawanese were overcome by French allurements
and were generally found about the French forts and forces. In the
spring of the year Half King had gone to Presque Isle and spoken firmly
though vainly to the French.
In so far as the English were more backward than the French in occupying
the land, the unprejudiced Delawares and Mingoes were inclined to
further English plans. When, a few years later, it became clear that the
English cared not a whit for the rights of the red men, the latter hated
and fought them as they never had the French. Washington was well
fitted for handling this delicate matter of sharpening Indian hatred of
the French and of keeping very still about English plans--his past
experiences were now of utmost value to him.
Here at Logstown unexpected information was had. Certain French
deserters from the Mississippi gave the English envoy a description of
French operations on that river between New Orleans and Illinois. The
latter word "Illinois" was taken by Washington's old Dutch interpreter
to be the French words _Isle Noire_, and Washington speaks of Illinois
as the "Black Islands" in his _Journal_. But this was not to be old Van
Braam's only blunder in the rôle of interpreter!
Half King was ready with the story of his recent journey to Presque
Isle, which he affirmed Washington could not reach "in less than five or
six nights' sleep, good traveling." Little wonder, at such a season, a
journey was measured by the number of nights to be spent in the frozen
forests. Marin's answer to Half King had been no less spirited because
of his own dying condition. The Frenchman had frankly stated that two
English traders had been taken to Canada _to get intelligence of what
the English were doing in Virginia_. So far as Indian possession of the
land was concerned, Marin was quickly to the point: "_You say this Land
belongs to you, but there is not the Black of my Nail yours. I saw that
Land sooner than you did, before the Shannoahs and you were at War:_
Lead _was the Man who went down, and took Possession of that River: It
is my Land, and I will have it, let who will stand-up for, or
say-against, it. I'll buy and sell with the English_, [mockingly]. _If
People will be ruled by me, they may expect Kindness, but not else._" La
Salle had gone down the Ohio and claimed possession of it long before
Delaware or Shawanese, Ottawa or Wyandot had built a single fire in the
valley. The claim of the Six Nations only, antedated that of the
French--but the Six Nations had sold their claim to the English for 400
pounds at Lancaster in 1744. This, however, did not settle the question.
At the council on the following day (26th) Washington delivered an
address, asking for guides and guards on his trip up the Allegheny and
Rivière aux Boeufs, adroitly implying, in word and gesture, that his
audience were the warmest allies of the English and equally desirous to
oppose French aggression. The council was for granting each request, but
the absence of the hunters necessitated a detention; undoubtedly, fear
of the French also provoked delay and counseling. Little wonder:
Washington would soon be across the mountains again and the rough
Frenchman who claimed even the earth beneath his finger-nails, and had
won over the Ottawas, Chippewas, and fierce Wyandots, would make short
work with all who had housed and counseled with the English envoy!
And--perhaps most ominous of all--Washington had not announced his
business in the West, undoubtedly fearing the Indians would not aid him
did they know it. When at last they asked the nature of his mission, he
answered just the best an honest-hearted lad could; "this was a Question
I had all along expected," he wrote in his _Journal_, "and had provided
as satisfactory Answers to, as I could; which allayed their Curiosity a
little." This youthful diplomat would have allayed the burning
curiosity of hundreds of others had he mentioned the reason he gave
those suspicious chieftains for this five-hundred-mile journey in the
wintry season to a miserable little French fort on Rivière aux Boeufs!
It is safe to assume that, could he have given the real reasons, he
would have been saved the difficulty of providing "satisfactory" ones.
For four days Washington remained, but on the 30th he set out northward,
accompanied only by the faithful Half King and three other Indians, and
on the 4th of December (after four "nights' sleep") the party arrived at
the mouth of Rivière aux Boeufs, where Joncaire was wintering in
Frazier's cabin. The seventy miles from Logstown were traversed at about
the same poor rate as the 125 from Wills Creek. To Joncaire's cabin,
over which floated the French flag, the Virginian envoy immediately
repaired. He was received with much courtesy, though, as he well knew,
Legardeur de St. Pierre at Fort La Boeuf, the successor of the dead
Marin, was the French commandant to whom his letter from Dinwiddie must
go.
However, Washington was treated "with the greatest Complaisance" by
Joncaire. During the evening the Frenchmen "dosed themselves pretty
plentifully," wrote the sober, keen-eyed Virginian, "and gave a License
to their Tongues. They told me, That it was their absolute Design to
take Possession of the _Ohio_, and by G-- they would do it: For that
although they were sensible the _English_ could raise two Men for their
one; yet they knew, their Motions were too slow and dilatory to prevent
any Undertaking of theirs." For a true picture of this Washington (who
is said to be forgotten) what one would be chosen before this: a youth
from Virginia sitting before the log fire in a German's cabin from which
the French had driven its owner, on the Allegheny river; about him are
sitting leering, tipsy Gauls, bragging with oaths of a conquest they
were never to make: he is dressed for a five-hundred-mile ride through a
wilderness in winter, and his sober eyes rest thoughtfully upon the
crackling logs while the oaths and boasts and smell of foreign liquor
fill the hot and heavy air. No picture could show better the three
commanding traits of this youth who was father of the man: hearty
daring, significant homespun shrewdness, dogged, resourceful patience.
Basic traits of character are often displayed involuntarily in the
effervescence of youthful zest. These this lad had shown and was showing
in this brave ride into a dense wilderness and a braver inspection of
his country's enemies, their works, their temper, and their boasts. Let
this picture hang on the walls of every home where the lad in the
foreground before the blazing logs is unknown save in the rôle of the
general or statesman he became in later life.
How these French officers looked this tall, stern boy up and down! How
they enjoyed sneering to his face at English backwardness in crossing
the Alleghanies into the great West which their own explorers had
honeycombed with a hundred swift canoes! As they even plotted his
assassination, how, in turn, that young heart must have burned to stop
their mouths with a clenched hand. Little wonder that when the time
came, his voice first ordered "Fire!" and his finger first pulled the
trigger in the great war which won the West from France!
But with the boasts came no little information concerning the French
operations on the Great Lakes, the number of their forts and men. But
Washington did not get off for Fort La Boeuf the next day, as the
weather was exceedingly rough. This gave the wily Joncaire a chance to
tamper with his Indians, and the opportunity was not neglected. Upon
learning that Half King was in the envoy's retinue, he professed great
regret that Washington had not "made free to bring him in before." The
Virginian was quick with a stinging retort: since he had heard Joncaire
"say a good deal in dispraise of the _Indians_ in general" he did not
"think their company agreeable." But Joncaire had his way and "applied
the Liquor so fast" that, lo! the poor Indians "were soon rendered
incapable of the Business they came about."
In the morning Half King came to Washington's tent hopefully sober but
urging that another day be spent at Venango, since "the Management of
the Indian Affairs was left solely to Monsieur _Joncaire_." To this the
envoy reluctantly acquiesced. But on the day after, the embassy got on
its way, thanks to Christopher Gist's influence over the Indians. When
Joncaire found them going, he forwarded their plans "in the heartiest
way in the world" and detailed Monsieur La Force (with whom this
Virginian was to meet in different circumstances within half a year) to
accompany them. Four days were spent in floundering over the last sixty
miles of this journey, the party being driven into "Mires and Swamps" to
avoid crossing the swollen Rivière aux Boeufs. On the 11th of
December, Washington reached his destination, having traveled over 500
miles in forty-two days.
[Illustration: A MAP OF THE COUNTRY BETWEEN WILLS CREEK AND LAKE ERIE
[_Showing the designs of the French for erecting forts southward of the
lake; drawn, before the erection of Fort Duquesne, evidently on the
basis of Washington's information secured in 1753. From the original in
the British Museum_]]
Legardeur de St. Pierre, the one-eyed commander at Fort La Boeuf, had
arrived but one week before Washington. To him the Virginian envoy
delivered Governor Dinwiddie's letter the day after his arrival. Its
contents read:
"Sir,
"The lands upon the River _Ohio_, in the Western Parts of the
Colony of _Virginia_, are so notoriously known to be the Property
of the Crown of _Great-Britain_; that it is a Matter of equal
Concern and Surprize to me, to hear that a Body of _French_ Forces
are erecting Fortresses, and making Settlements upon that River,
within his Majesty's Dominions.
"The many and repeated Complaints I have received of these Acts of
Hostility, lay me under the Necessity, of sending, in the Name of
the King my Master, the Bearer hereof, _George Washington_, Esq;
one of the Adjutants-General of the Forces of this Dominion; to
complain to you of the Encroachments thus made, and of the Injuries
done to the Subjects of _Great-Britain_, in open Violation of the
Law of Nations, and the Treaties now subsisting between the two
Crowns.
"If these Facts are true, and you shall think fit to justify your
Proceedings, I must desire you to acquaint me, by whose Authority
and Instructions you have lately marched from _Canada_, with an
armed Force; and invaded the King of _Great-Britain's_ Territories,
in the Manner complained of? that according to the Purport and
Resolution of your Answer, I may act agreeably to the Commission
I am honoured with, from the King my Master.
"However, Sir, in Obedience to my Instructions, it becomes my Duty
to require your peaceable Departure; and that you would forbear
prosecuting a Purpose so interruptive of the Harmony and good
Understanding, which his Majesty is desirous to continue and
cultivate with the most Christian King.
"I persuade myself you will receive and entertain Major
_Washington_ with the Candour and Politeness natural to your
Nation; and it will give me the greatest Satisfaction, if you
return him with an Answer suitable to my Wishes for a very long and
lasting Peace between us. I have the Honour to subscribe myself,
SIR,
Your most obedient,
Humble Servant,
ROBERT DINWIDDIE."
While an answer was being prepared, the envoy had an opportunity to take
careful note of the fort and its hundred defenders. The fortress which
Washington carefully described in his _Journal_ was not so significant
as the great host of canoes along the river shore. It was French canoes
the English feared more than French forts. The number at Fort La Boeuf
at this time was over two hundred, and others were being made. And every
stream flowed south to the land "notoriously known" to belong to the
British crown.
On the 14th, Washington was planning his homeward trip. His horses,
lacking proper nourishment and exhausted by the hard trip northward,
were totally unfit for service, and were at once set on the road to
Venango, since canoes had been offered the little embassy for the return
trip. Anxious as Washington was to be off, neither his business nor that
of Half King's had been despatched with any celerity until now; but this
day Half King secured an audience with St. Pierre and offered him the
wampum which was promptly refused, though with many protestations of
friendship and an offer to send a load of goods to Logstown. Every
effort possible was being put forth to alienate Half King, and the
Virginian lad frankly wrote: "I can't say that ever in my Life I
suffered so much Anxiety as I did in this Affair." This day and the
next, the French officers outdid themselves in hastening Washington's
departure and retarding Half King's. At last Washington complained
frankly to St. Pierre, who denied his duplicity--and doubled his bribes.
But on the day following Half King was gotten away, Venango being
reached in six long days, a large part of the time being spent dragging
the canoes over icy shoals.
Four days were spent with Joncaire, when, abandoning both horses and
Indians, Washington and Gist set out alone and afoot by the shortest
course to the Forks of the Ohio. It was a daring alternative but
altogether the preferable one. At Murdering Town, a fit place for
Joncaire's assassin to lie in wait, some French Indians were come up
with, one of whom offered to guide the travelers across to the Forks. At
the first good chance he fired upon them and was disarmed and sent away.
The two, building a raft, reached an island in the Allegheny after
heroic suffering, but were unable to cross to the eastern shore until
the following morning. They then passed over on the ice which had
formed and went directly to Frazier's cabin. There they arrived December
29th. On the first day of the new year, 1754, Washington set out for
Virginia on the little path over which he had come out. On the sixth he
met seventeen horses loaded with materials and stores "for a fort at the
Fork of the _Ohio_." Governor Dinwiddie, indefatigable if nothing else,
had commissioned Captain Trent to raise a company of a hundred men to
erect a fort on the Ohio for the protection of the Ohio Company.
On the 16th of January the youthful envoy rode again into Williamsburg,
one month from the day he left Fort La Boeuf. St. Pierre's reply to
Governor Dinwiddie's letter read as follows:
"_Sir_,
"As I have the Honour of commanding here in Chief, Mr. _Washington_
delivered me the Letter which you wrote to the Commandant of the
_French_ Troops.
"I should have been glad that you had given him Orders, or that he
had been inclined to proceed to _Canada_ to see our General; to
whom it better belongs than to me to set-forth the Evidence and
Reality of the Rights of the King, my Master, upon the Lands
situated along the River _Ohio_, and to contest the Pretensions of
the King of _Great-Britain_ thereto.
"I shall transmit your Letter to the Marquis _Duguisne_. His Answer
will be a Law to me; and if he shall order me to communicate it to
you, Sir, you may be assured I shall not fail to dispatch it to you
forthwith.
"As to the Summons you send me to retire, I do not think myself
obliged to obey it. What-ever may be your Instructions, I am here
by Virtue of the Orders of my General; and I intreat you, Sir, not
to doubt one Moment, but that I am determin'd to conform myself to
them with all the Exactness and Resolution which can be expected
from the best Officer.
"I don't know that in the Progress of this Campaign any Thing
passed which can be reputed an Act of Hostility, or that is
contrary to the Treaties, which subsist between the two Crowns; the
Continuation whereof as much interests, and is as pleasing to us,
as the _English_. Had you been pleased, Sir, to have descended to
particularize the Facts which occasioned your Complaint, I should
have had the Honour of answering you in the fullest, and, I am
persuaded, most satisfactory Manner.
"I made it my particular Care to receive Mr _Washington_, with a
Distinction suitable to your Dignity, as well as his own Quality
and great Merit. I flatter myself that he will do me this Justice
before you, Sir; and that he will signify to you in the Manner I do
myself, the profound Respect with which I am,
SIR,
Your most humble, and
most obedient Servant,
LEGARDEUR DE ST. PIERRE."
Washington found the Governor's council was to meet the day following
and that his report was desired. Accordingly he rewrote his _Journal_
from the "rough minutes" he had made. From any point of view this
document of ten thousand words, hastily written by this lad of
twenty-one, who had long since left his school desk, is far more
creditable and remarkable than any of the feats of physical endurance
for which the lad is idolized by the youthful readers of our school
histories. It is safe to say that many a college bred man today could
not prepare from rough notes such a succinct and polite document as did
this young surveyor, who had read few books, and, it can almost be said,
had studied neither his own nor any foreign language. The author did not
"in the least conceive ... that it would ever be published." Speaking
afterward of its "numberless imperfections," he said all that could
recommend it to the public was its truthfulness of fact. Certain
features of this first public service of Washington's are worthy of
remark: his frankness, as in criticizing Shingiss's village as a site
for a fort, as proposed by the Ohio Company; his exactness in giving
details (where he could obtain them) of forts, men, and guns; his
estimates of distances; his wise conforming to Indian custom; his
careful note of the time of day of important events; his frequent
observations of the character of the lands through which he passed; his
knowledge of Indian character.
This mission prosecuted with such rare tact and skill was an utter
failure, considered from the standpoint of its nominal purpose. St.
Pierre's letter was firm, if not defiant. Yet Dinwiddie, despairing of
French withdrawal, had secured the information he desired. Already Trent
had reached the Forks of the Ohio where an English fort was being
erected. Peaceful measures were exhausted with the failure of
Washington's embassy. England's one hope was--war!