ries and privileges by trading with the Indians under the protection of France, he would cause such persons to be seized wherever they could be found, if they did not immediately desist from that illicit practice.* This threat, however, did not prevent the Ohio Company from prosecuting their designs. They employed an agent, Christopher Gist, "to explore the country, examine the quality of the lands, keep a journal of his adventures, draw as accurate a plan of the country as his observation would permit, and report the same to the Board." In the course of the years 1750, 1751, and 1752, Mr. Gist and other British subjects explored the country southwardly as far as the falls of the river Ohio, and northwardly several miles up the Miami and Scioto valleys. On the 13th of June, 1752, at Loggstown, about eighteen miles below the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers, Col. Fry and two other commissioners on the part of Virginia, obtained a promise from some Indians, that they would not "molest any settlements that might be made on the south-east side of the Ohio." In the course of the same year the agents of the Ohio Company established a trading house, among the Twightwees, on what is now called Loramie's creek, about fortyseven miles north of the present town of Dayton, in the state of Ohio.†

While the English were thus prosecuting their designs, the French erected a fort at Presqu'Isle on Lake Erie, and soon afterwards advanced their posts to Venango, on the Allegheny at the mouth of French creek, about seventy miles northward of the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers.

In 1753, the British ministry, foreseeing that the controversy concerning the extensive and fertile regions on the western side of the Allegheny mountains could be settled only by the sword, earnestly urged the English colonies in America to form a union. In Virginia, preparations were made to raise a regiment for the protection of the frontiers; the General Assembly of that colony passed an act for the encouragement of

*Smollett, ii, 125.

†N. A. Review, No. C.

settlers on the waters of the Mississippi, and Major George Washington was sent with a letter from Governor Robert Dinwiddie to the commandant of the French forces about the Ohio, requiring him to withdraw from the dominions of Great Britain. This letter was delivered, at a fort on the western branch of French creek, to M. Le Guarduer de St. Pierre. That officer answered, in reply to this message, that "it was not his province to specify the evidence, and demonstrate the right of the king his master to the lands situated on the river Ohio; but he would transmit the letter to the Marquis du Quesne, and act according to the answer he should receive. from that nobleman. In the mean time, he said, he did not think himself obliged to obey the summons of the English Governor; that he commanded the fort by virtue of an order from his general, to which he was determined to conform with all the precision and resolution of a good officer.”*

At this time the French had a number of posts and small settlements scattered over the great valley of the Mississippi, Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Vincennes, the post of Arkansas, Natchitoches on Red River, and Natchez on the Mississippi, were rallying points of the trafficking population in this immense region, while New Orleans, Mobile, and Detroit, had become places of considerable commerce. From these various points the influence of the French was disseminated among the Indians, and while the Six Nations and a branch of the Miamies were almost the only allies of the English, the French were connected by ties of interest and friendship with nearly all the tribes of the north and west.†

In the spring of 1754, Major Washington received orders to proceed, with a detachment of two hundred men, to the point at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, and there to complete a fort which the Ohio Company had begun to build. The attempt which was made to execute this

*Smollett.

†Frost's U. S. 170.

Governor Dinwiddie issued a proclamation inviting the people to enlist in the service against the French, and, as an inducement, promised that the quantity of two hundred thousand acres of land should be laid out and divided among the adventurers, when the

order was defeated by the French. A strong force, consisting of about one thousand men with eighteen pieces of cannon, under the command of M. Contrecœur, passed down the Allegheny from Venango, early in the spring of 1754, and landed at the site which Washington had been ordered to fortify. After driving off a small detachment of militia and some workmen who were engaged in the service of the Ohio Company, the French erected Fort Du Quesne. This fort was completed in April, 1754.

During the time which elapsed between the years 1749 and 1754, the French and their Indian allies captured a number of English traders on the borders of the Ohio, seized their peltries and other commodities to the value of twenty thousand pounds sterling, and took possession of a block-house and truck-house which the agents of the Ohio Company had erected at Loggstown, on the Ohio. The Twightwees, in resentment of the injuries done to their allies, captured three French traders and sent them to Pennsylvania. The French then determined to punish these Indians for their adherence to the cause of the English; and in 1752, parties of warriors, acting under the direction of French officers and traders, attacked the Twightwees, killed fourteen Indians of that tribe, and took possession of the English trading post on Loramie's creek. In November, 1752, Governor. Dinwiddie, of Virginia, sent a message to the Twightwees. In this message, which was written on a sheet of parchment about eight inches square, the Governor said, "I received Your Belt of Wampum and Scalp, by the Bearer Thomas Burney, and Your Speeches, with a Beaver Blanket, Pipe, and Belt of Wampum, by Capt. Trent and Mr. Montour. It has given me great Concern for the late Stroke that You have received from the Indians in

service should be at an end. One hundred thousand acres of land was to be laid out at the confluence of the Allegheny and Ohio rivers; and the other one hundred thousand acres on the Ohio. On the appearance of this proclamation, Mr. Hamilton, the Governor of Pennsylvania, wrote to Governor Dinwiddie, reminding him that the proposed grants of lands, and the settlements which might be made thereon, should not be made use of to prejudice the right of the Province of Pennsylvania to the territories about the upper wa. ters of the river Ohio.

Rider's His. xl. 71-Smollett ii, 152.

the Interest of the French, and of their barbarous Murdering of Your People." The message was signed by "Dinwiddie," and addressed to "Sachems and Warriors of the Twightwees, our Friends and Brethren."

When Major Washington, acting under the instructions of the Governor of Virginia, visited the head waters of the Ohio, in 1753, he was informed that the French, at that time, had four small forts on the Mississippi between New Orleans and the Illinois. At New Orleans there were "thirty-five companies of forty men each, with a pretty strong fort mounting eight carriage guns ;" and at the Illinois there were "several companies and a fort mounting six guns." There was, also, a "small palisadoed fort," on the Ohio at the mouth of the Wabash.

In 1754, a plan was proposed, by Dr. Benjamin Franklin, for establishing strong English colonies in the territory northwest of the Ohio, to prevent "the dreaded junction of the French settlements in Canada with those of Louisiana." Dr. Franklin proposed to plant one colony in the valley of the river Scioto; and to erect small fortifications at the following points, viz: at Buffalo creek on the river Ohio; at the mouth. of Tioga on the south side of Lake Erie; at Hockhocking, and at, or near, the mouth of the Wabash. He also proposed that "Sandusky, a French fort near Lake Erie, should be taken; and all the little French forts south and west of the lakes, quite to the Mississippi, be removed, or taken and garrisoned by the English." "Every fort," he said, "should have a small settlement around it; as the fort would protect the settlers, and the settlers defend the fort and supply it with provisions."*

In May, 1754, De Villiers, an officer at Fort Du Quesne, sent the Sieur de Jumonville, at the head of a small party, with a formal summons to Washington requiring him to withdraw with his forces from the territories of France. This party was attacked on the 28th of May by the troops under Washington, at a place called the Little Meadows. Jumonville was slain, and all his men either killed or captured. Soon after this

*Franklin's Writings, edited by Sparks, iii, 70.

event, Washington was told that De Villiers, at the head of a force consisting of nine hundred men, French and Indians, was marching against him: Having, at this time, only about three hundred men under his command, he retreated to the Great Meadows, and on the first of July, at that place, began to fortify a rude post which he called Fort Necessity.* On the 3d day of July, 1754, the post was attacked by the forces under De Villiers. After a gallant defence Washington agreed to capitulate on terms which were proposed by De Villiers. The conduct of the French officer was, on this occasion, honorable and magnanimous. It was stipulated in the articles of capitulation that Washington and his weak and reduced detachment should march from the fort with the honors of war, and carry with them their military stores and baggage. De Villiers, in giving an account of the action says, "On the 4th at the dawn of day I sent a detachment to take possession of the fort. The garrison defiled, and the number of their dead and wounded excited my pity, in spite of the resentment which I felt for the manner in which they had taken away the life of my brother."+

When information reached England concerning the erection. of Fort Du Quesne, and the defeat of the provincial forces under Washington, the British government gave orders for a vigorous preparation for war. The English colonies were directed to take up arms, and act with united exertions against the French in North America.

In February, 1755, Major-General Edward Braddock arrived at Alexandria, in Virginia, with the forty-fourth and fortyeighth regiments of British Regulars, commanded by Sir Peter Halket and Colonel Dunbar. On his arrival in Virginia, Braddock immediately began to make preparations to carry a strong expedition against Fort Du Quesne; and, on the 12th of June, having received a reinforcement of about one thousand provincial troops he began his march from Will's creek, (afterwards

*The site of Fort Necessity at the Great Meadows is three or four hundred yards south of what is now called the National Road, four miles from the foot of Laurel Hill.— [Butler.

Alluding to the death of Jumonville.