ness, and offered my commission and letter, both of which he desired me to keep, until the arrival of Monsieur Reparti, captain at the next fort, who was sent for and expected any hour.

"This commander is a knight of the military order of St. Louis, and named Legardeur de St. Pierre. He is an elderly gentleman and has much the air of a soldier. He was sent over to take the command immediately upon the death of the late general, and arrived here about seven days before me.

"At two o'clock, the gentleman who was sent for arrived, when I offered the letter, etc., again, which they received, and adjourned into a private apartment for the captain to translate, who understood a little English. After he had done it, the commander desired I would walk in and bring my interpreter to peruse and correct it, which I did.

"13th. The chief officers retired to hold a council of war,—which gave me an opportunity of taking the dimensions of the fort, which I did.

"It is situated on the south or west pit of French Creek, near the water, and is almost surrounded by the creek, and a small branch of it, which form a kind of island. Four houses compose the sides. The bastions are made of piles driven into the ground, standing more than twelve feet above it, and sharp at the top, with port-holes cut for cannon, and loop-holes for the small arms to fire through."

After this description of the fort, and an estimate of the garrison, the diary goes on:

14th. As the snow increased very fast, and our horses daily became weaker I sent them off unloaded, under the

WASHINGTON'S DIARY.

49

care of Barnaby Currie and two others, to make all convenient despatch to Venango, and there to wait our arrival, if there was a prospect of the river's freezing; if not, then to continue down to Shannopin's Town, at the fork of the Ohio, and there to wait until we came to cross the Alleghany, intending myself to go down by water, as I had the offer of a canoe or two.

"As I found many plots concerted to retard the Indians' business, and prevent their returning with me, I endeavored all that lay in my power to frustrate their schemes, and hurried them on to execute their intended designs. They accordingly pressed for admittance this evening, which at length was granted to them privately, to the commander and one or two other officers. The Half King told me that he offered the wampum to the commander, who evaded taking it and made many fair promises of love and friendship; said he wanted to live in peace and trade amicably with them, as a proof of which he would send some goods immediately down to the Logstown for them. But I rather think the design of that is to bring away all our straggling traders they meet with, as I privately understood they intended to carry an officer with them. And what rather confirms this opinion, I was inquiring of the commander by what authority he had made prisoners of several of our English subjects. He told me that the country belonged to them; that no Englishman had a right to trade upon these waters; and that he had orders to make every person prisoner who attempted it on the Ohio, or the waters of it.

"This evening I received an answer to his Honor the Governor's letter from the Commandant."

The letter thus received, was carried after weeks of perilous adventure to Gov. Dinwiddie. It was diplomatic but conceded nothing. The Virginian government was satisfied that the French intended to send a military force into the valley of the Ohio in the next year. They printed Washington's journal and sent to England the information which they had received by him. This had no little effect in quickening the movements which led up to what we call "The Seven Years' War." Governor Dinwiddie sent circular letters to the governors of the other American provinces, calling their attention to the certainty that war would be upon them in the next year. He called together his own colonial assembly. This assembly was almost always in controversy with any governor appointed by the Crown; but, after a good deal of wrangling, they consented to provide a sufficient revenue for the enlistment of three hundred and fifty troops. These were divided into six companies. The command of the whole was offered to Washington. It must be remembered that he was not yet twenty-two years old. He had the prudence to decline the charge, and was made second in command under Colonel Joshua Frye, an English gentleman of some military experience and education. Washington was dissatisfied with the recruits, who were gathered under the call made for troops, but, such as they were, their officers began the rather hopeless task of training them. On the

second of April, 1754, with two companies he left Alexandria, to join the party building the new fort at the junction of the two rivers which formed the Ohio. It must be observed that this was two years before a formal declaration of war. Before he arrived at Will's Creek, they were startled by a rumor that Captain Trent, who was in advance, had been captured, with all his men, by the French. This rumor proved to be false. But Trent had not succeeded in fortifying the post, and before many days the whole party he had left at work there came in to Will's Creek, having retired before the body of French, which they thought consisted of a thousand men. Captain Contrecœur had suddenly appeared with this force, in a fleet of six boats and three hundred canoes, as they estimated them, and had summoned the ensign in command to surrender. All the terms the young man could obtain was permission to depart with his men and their tools. The French began the fort, which they named Duquesne, at the point which the English abandoned to them.

This was war, indeed. It was war pronounced on the spot by the officers in charge before any proclamation had been made by the powers of Europe. Washington had expected it. He was simply disgusted to learn that the French had been too quick for his sluggish subordinate, and that the important post which he had himself determined.

upon, at the junction of the two rivers, had fallen into their hands.

He found himself compelled, with an army of three hundred and fifty men just raised, to attack the French forces, who were represented to him as nearly three times his superiors. Between him and them were the Alleghany Mountains. Behind him was the administration, necessarily poor, of a colony, unacquainted with war, which was just learning the alphabet of military procedure. Washington's own officers were dissatisfied with the provision made for them, and the rank and file of his six companies was of the poorest material. None the less, did he press forward. He succeeded in opening a communication with the "Half-King," who had accompanied him, the winter before, and having taken a position at Great Meadows, a place which for some years was a central point in the frontier warfare, he began to build a fort there. A few days after he surprised a party of French and took twenty-one prisoners. Of his own party, one was killed and three wounded. His account of this skirmish, unfortunately for his reputation, was printed in England. For it was in this letter that he made the remark which was often afterwards quoted, that "the whistling of bullets was like music." George the Second said, that if he had heard more, he would not have thought Walpole printed that story, and Washington was asked, in after life, if he ever had used the

So.