Mahew's Patriotic Sermons

The Ohio Company complained of these hostile demonstrations. Their lands lay within the chartered limits of Virginia, and the authorities of that colony felt it their duty to interfere in defence of the rights of the Company. Already the governors of Virginia and Pennsylvania had received instructions from England to repel the French by force of arms, if necessary. Robert Dinwiddie, one of the Company, and now governor of Virginia, determined to first send a letter of remonstrance to M. de St. Pierre, the French commander. Now, George Washington, who was destined to occupy a conspicuous place in the history of our country and of the world, first appeared on the theatre of public action, at the very opening of that illustrious drama whose closing scene was the founding of a mighty nation.

Young Washington was then a little more than twenty-one years of age. He was of an excellent and honorable family, whose roots lay far back in English history. He was a sort of foster-son of old Lord Fairfax; and as a public surveyor and skillful hunter, had traversed the forests of Virginia far and near, in the direction of the Ohio. At the age of nineteen years he had been commissioned a major of militia, charged with defending the colony against incursions of the Indians, and had entered upon the duties of his office with alacrity and zeal. Fraternal affection had called him from them to attend upon a dying brother, but he had evinced, during his short service, such an aptitude for military pursuits, and such faithfulness in performance, that he was marked for promotion.

Dinwiddie sent for Major Washington. He appeared promptly at the room of the governor (more exactly the lieutenant-governor) in the old state-house at Williamsburg, late in October, 1753. Dinwiddie was a bald-headed Scotchman, sixty-three years of age, with thin sandy hair, stout built, and so extremely nervous that his writing bore the marks of a trembling hand. Young Washington was full six feet in height, strongly built, with a florid complexion and every indication of high health and physical strength. The governor then first revealed to the major the object of his summons, and received his cheerful agreement to perform whatever duty might be required of him. The governor gave him a commission and instructions to proceed to the quarters of the French commander, and present to him in person a letter from Dinwiddie, in which the governor inquired by what authority French troops had presumed to intrude upon the territory of the British monarch, and what were his designs. It was a mission of great delicacy, and was accompanied by not a little peril. Discretion, ability, courage, physical endurance, experience in wood-craft and a knowledge of Indian manners, were requisite. Believing young Washington to be possessed of all of these, in an eminent degree, the governor chose him to be his ambassador, out of hundreds of the more pretentious aristocracy of Virginia. The result was creditable alike to the character of Major Washington and the sagacity of Governor Dinwiddie.

Washington was directed to proceed to Logstown (on the right bank of the Ohio, about fourteen miles below the site of Pittsburgh); convene influential Indian chiefs there; tell them the object of his visit, and request them to furnish him a competent escort as a safeguard to the headquarters of the French commander. There he was to demand an answer to Dinwiddie's letter in the name of his king; to observe, with caution, the number of troops that had crossed the lake; perceive the strength and number of their forts, and their distance from each other, and gain all information possible concerning the French on the English frontier. With these instructions Washington left Williamsburg, the Virginia capital, on the thirty-first of October, and was joined by John Davidson as Indian interpreter, and Jacob Van Braam, a Hollander by birth, and acquainted with the French language, to assist him in his intercourse with the people he was going to see. On his way he was joined by Mr. Gist, who acted as guide. With these, and four other men (two of them Indian traders), with horses, tents and baggage, they left the borders of civilization at the mouth of Will's Creek (now Cumberland, Maryland), and made their way over the Alleghany Mountains, then covered with snow. They endured every hardship incident to a dreary wilderness and the rigors of winter. The streams in the valleys were full to their brims. Over the large ones they passed upon frail and rudely constructed rafts, wading and swimming their horses through the floods of the smaller streams. Late in November they reached the forks of the Ohio, on the site of Pittsburgh, where they rested a few days, and then proceeded to Logstown, accompanied by an influential sachem of the Delawares.

The headquarters of M. de St. Pierre was one hundred and twenty miles from Logstown. A bold and patriotic chief named Half-King, who, when the French came with arms and built forts in his country, had vehemently protested against the invasion of the rights of the Indians, and had been treated with disdain, volunteered, with two other chiefs and a skillful hunter, to escort the English company of eight to the headquarters of the French. In the simplicity of his heart he thought the English were only seeking to establish a trade with the tribes for mutual benefit. He and his people soon found that the French and English were equally governed by the ethics of the mailed hand--"Might makes Right," and came to deprive them of their domain and liberty.