The Student's Life of Washington; Condensed from the Larger Work of Washington Irving For Young Persons and for the Use of Schools

said, intended to connect Louisiana and Canada by a chain of military posts, and hem the English within the Alleghany Mountains.
    The Ohio company complained loudly to the lieutenant-governor of Virginia, the Hon. Robert Dinwiddie, of the hostile conduct of the French and their Indian allies. They found in Dinwiddie a ready listener; he was a stockholder in the company. A commissioner, Captain William Trent, was sent to expostulate with the French commander on the Ohio for his aggressions on the territory of his Brittanic majesty; he bore presents also of guns, powder, shot, and clothing for the friendly Indians. Trent was not a man of the true spirit for a mission to the frontier. He stopped a short time at Logstown, though the French were one hundred and fifty miles further up the river, and directed his course to Piqua, the great town of the Twightwees, where Gist and Croghan had been so well received by the Miamis. All now was reversed. The place had been attacked by the French and Indians; the Miamis defeated with great loss; the English traders taken prisoners; the Piankesha chief, who had so proudly turned his back upon the Ottawa ambassadors, had been sacrificed by the hostile savages, and the French flag hoisted in triumph on the ruins of the town. The whole aspect of affairs was so threatening on the frontier that Trent lost heart, and returned home without accomplishing his errand.
    Governor Dinwiddie now looked round for a person more fitted to fulfil a mission which required physical strength and moral energy; a courage to cope with savages, and a sagacity to negotiate with white men. Washington was pointed out as possessed of those requisites. It is true he was not yet twenty-two years of age, but public confidence in his judgment and abilities had been manifested, by renewing his appointment of adjutant-general, and assigning him the northern division. He was accordingly chosen for the expedition.
    By his letter of instructions he was directed to repair to Logstown, and hold a communication with Tanacharisson, Monacatoocha, alias Scarooyadi, the next in command, and the other sachems of the mixed tribes friendly to the English; inform them of the purport of his errand, and request an escort to the head-quarters of the French commander. To that commander he was to deliver his credentials, and the letter of Governor Dinwiddie, and demand an answer in the name of his Brittanic majesty; but not to wait for it beyond a week. On receiving it, he was to request a sufficient escort to protect him on his return. He was, moreover, to acquaint himself with the numbers and force of the French stationed on the Ohio and in its vicinity; their capability of being reinforced from Canada; the forts they had erected; where situated, how garrisoned; the object of their advancing into those parts, and how they were likely to be supported. Washington set off from Williamsburg on the 30th of October, 1753, the very day on which he received his credentials. At Fredericksburg he engaged his old “master of fence,” Jacob Van Braam, to accompany him as interpreter.
    Having provided himself at Alexandria with necessaries for the journey, he proceeded to Winchester, then on the frontier, where he procured horses, tents, and other travelling equipments, and then pushed on by a road newly opened to Wills’ Creek, where he arrived on the 14th of November. Here he met with Mr. Gist, the intrepid pioneer, whom he engaged to accompany and pilot him in the present expedition. He secured the services also of one John Davidson as Indian interpreter, and of four frontiersmen. With this little band, he set forth on the 15th of November through a wild country, rendered almost impassable by recent storms of rain and snow.
    As the rivers were all swollen so that the horses had to swim them, Washington sent all the baggage down the Monongahela in a canoe under care of two of the men, who had orders to meet him at the confluence of that river with the Alleghany, where their united waters form the Ohio. “As I got down before the canoe,” writes he in his journal, “I spent some time in viewing the rivers, and the land at the fork, which I think extremely well situated for a fort, as it has the absolute command of both rivers.” The Ohio company had intended to build a fort about two miles from this place, on the southeast side of the river; but Washington gave the fork the decided preference. French engineers of experience proved the