The Treaty of Aix-La-Chapelle: Monongahela and Alleghany

After braving perils and hardships, the little company found themselves, early in December, at Fort Venango(now Franklin), the French outpost commanded by M. Joncaire. He received the English with civility, but tried to detach and detain the Indians. He remembered the patriotic speech of Half-King at a previous meeting, when the chief said: "The Great-King above allowed the land to be a place of residence for us, so I desire you to withdraw, as I have done our brothers, the English; for I will keep you at arm's length. I lay this down as a trial for both, to see which will have the greatest regard to it and make equal sharers with us." Joncaire hoped to gain his confidence by shaking his faith in the English, but did not succeed.

Further up the French Creek, Washington found St. Pierre, at Fort Le Boeuf. Here was the end of the Virginia ambassador's journey of forty-one days. The French commandant received him and his companions with great politeness. He was an elderly and courtly knight of St. Louis who, in his early years, had served in the army of Louis the Great, and had escaped the corruptions of the licentious court of his successor. He received the governor's letter with thanks; entertained the bearer and his friends four days, and then delivered into the hands of Major Washington a sealed letter in reply to Dinwiddie's. With this letter and much useful information respecting the forts and forces of the French, gathered by himself and his associates, Washington returned to Williamsburgh at the middle of January.

The return journey was more perilous and fatiguing than the first. A greater portion of it was performed by Washington and Gist alone and on foot. At one time they were fired at by Indians supposed to have been incited to the deed by Joncaire. On another occasion, after working a whole day in constructing a raft, they attempted to cross the swift and swollen current of the Alleghany River upon it. The stream was filled with floating ice. They embarked at twilight, each with a pack on his back and gun strapped to it. They soon found themselves buffeting great perils. Washington, with a setting pole, was trying to hold the frail structure that the ice might pass by, when he was jerked off into water ten feet deep, and saved himself from drowning by catching hold of a raft-log. The raft was crushed, and the travelers, thoroughly drenched, were cast upon a desert island, where they lay upon the snow all night, hungry and half-frozen. Mr. Gist had all of his fingers and some of his toes frozen. Fortunately the ice was so thick over the channel in the morning that they crossed to the main, and toward evening, suffering with cold, they reached the cabin of a Scotch settler, near the spot where, a year and a half afterward, Braddock fought the French and Indians in the battle of the Monongahela. The island on which the travelers were wrecked is directly opposite the United States Arsenal, at Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, and is known as Washington's Island.

After this adventure, Major Washington and his companion rested two or three days for their own refreshment and to procure horses. During that time the major paid a complimentary visit to the Indian Queen Aliquippa, who resided at the confluence of the Monongahela and Youghiogany rivers, in the southeastern part of Alleghany county. She had complained of his neglect in not calling upon her when on his outward journey. Young Washington explained the circumstances that prevented him, and with an apology he gave her a coat and a bottle of rum. The latter, Washington wrote, "was thought the much better present of the two," and harmony of feeling was restored. Aliquippa, who was a woman of great energy, and had performed some brave deeds, was held in respect amounting almost to reverence by the Indians in Western Pennsylvania.