“As I have the Honour of commanding here in Chief, Mr. Washington delivered me the Letter which you wrote to the Commandant of the French Troops.
“I should have been glad that you had given him Orders, or that he had been inclined to proceed to Canada to see our General; to whom it better belongs than to me to set-forth the Evidence and Reality of the Rights of the King, my Master, upon the Lands situated along the River Ohio, and to contest the Pretensions of the King of Great-Britain thereto.
“I shall transmit your Letter to the Marquis Duguisne. His Answer will be a Law to me; and if he shall order me to communicate it to you, Sir, you may be assured I shall not fail to dispatch it to you forthwith.
“As to the Summons you send me to retire, I do not think myself obliged to obey it. What-ever may be your Instructions, I am here by Virtue of the Orders of my General; and I intreat you, Sir, not to doubt one Moment, but that I am determin’d to conform myself to them with all the Exactness and Resolution which can be expected from the best Officer.
“I don’t know that in the Progress of this Campaign any Thing passed which can be reputed an Act of Hostility, or that is contrary to the Treaties, which subsist between the two Crowns; the Continuation whereof as much interests, and is as pleasing to us, as the English. Had you been pleased, Sir, to have descended to particularize the Facts which occasioned your Complaint, I should have had the Honour of answering you in the fullest, and, I am persuaded, most satisfactory Manner.
“I made it my particular Care to receive Mr Washington, with a Distinction suitable to your Dignity, as well as his own Quality and great Merit. I flatter myself that he will do me this Justice before you, Sir; and that he will signify to you in the Manner I do myself, the profound Respect with which I am,
SIR,
Your most humble, and
most obedient Servant,
Legardeur de St. Pierre.”
Washington found the Governor’s council was to meet the day following and that his report was desired. Accordingly he rewrote his Journal from the “rough minutes” he had made. From any point of view this document of ten thousand words, hastily written by this lad of twenty-one, who had long since left his school desk, is far more creditable and remarkable than any of the feats of physical endurance for which the lad is idolized by the youthful readers of our school histories. It is safe to say that many a college bred man today could not prepare from rough notes such a succinct and polite document as did this young surveyor, who had read few books, and, it can almost be said, had studied neither his own nor any foreign language. The author did not “in the least conceive ... that it would ever be published.” Speaking afterward of its “numberless imperfections,” he said all that could recommend it to the public was its truthfulness of fact. Certain features of this first public service of Washington’s are worthy of remark: his frankness, as in criticizing Shingiss’s village as a site for a fort, as proposed by the Ohio Company; his exactness in giving details (where he could obtain them) of forts, men, and guns; his estimates of distances; his wise conforming to Indian custom; his careful note of the time of day of important events; his frequent observations of the character of the lands through which he passed; his knowledge of Indian character.
This mission prosecuted with such rare tact and skill was an utter failure, considered from the standpoint of its nominal purpose. St. Pierre’s letter was firm, if not defiant. Yet Dinwiddie, despairing of French withdrawal, had secured the information he desired. Already Trent had reached the Forks of the Ohio where an English fort was being erected. Peaceful measures were exhausted with the failure of Washington’s embassy. England’s one hope was—war!