Character of Spottswood.—Conflicting Claims of the French and English.—Injustice toward the Indians.—The Ohio Company.
governors Virginia ever had. He was liberal-minded and generous, and at once reversed the usual practice of royal governors, by making his private interest, if necessary, subservient to the public good. * He promoted internal improvements, set an example of elegant hospitality, encouraged learning, revered religion, and if he had been the royal representative when the eloquence of Henry aroused every generous heart in the Old Dominion, he would doubtless have been among the boldest rebels of the day. From the close of his administration in 1722, until the commencement of difficulties with the French and Indians, more than twenty years afterward, Virginia continued to increase in wealth, and general happiness and prosperity prevailed within its borders. **
We have already considered the most important events connected with the French empire in America which occurred along our northern frontier, and alluded to the fact that, in the ambitious scheme for gaining the mastery of this continent, the French made strenuous efforts to form a continuous chain of military works from the northern lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Upon widely different grounds did the French and English base their claims to the possession of the territory west of the Alleghany Mountains. The former claimed a right to the soil because of prior actual occupation; the latter claimed the domain as their own on account of the discovery of the Atlantic coast by the Cabots, before the French had made any settlements. The Pacific coast was considered as the western boundary. Upon the principle of settling claims by drawing a line interiorly at right angles from the coast discovered, the French, from their undisputed province of Acadia, might have claimed almost the whole of New England, and one half of New York, with all the lakes. It was a difficult question, while the argument rested upon a foundation of unrighteousness. **
The French had long occupied Detroit. They had explored the Mississippi Valley, formed settlements at Kaskaskias and Vincennes (the former now in the southern portion of Illinois, and the latter in the south part of Indiana), and along the northern border of the Gulf of Mexico, when the dispute arose. To vindicate their claims to the country they had explored, they commenced building forts. These the English viewed with jealousy, and determined to contravene the evident attempts to supersede them in the empire of the New World.
In 1749, a royal grant of six hundred thousand acres of land on the Ohio River was made to a number of English merchants and Virginia planters, who, under the name of The Ohio Company, had associated for the ostensible purpose of trade. The British ministry, anticipating early hostility with France, had also sent out orders to the governor of Virginia to build two forts near the Ohio River, for the purpose of securing possession. But the order came too late; already the French were planting fortifications in that direction. The establishment of this trading company was the first positive intimation which the French had received of the intention of the English to vindicate their claims. They regarded the movement as the incipient steps toward a destruction of their western trade with the In-
* I have in my possession a document, signed by Spottswood, to which is attached the great seal of Virginia, a huge disk of beeswax, four and a half inches in diameter, on one side of which is impressed the English arms, and on the other a figure of Britannia, holding a scepter in one hand and a globe in the other, and receiving the obeisance of an Indian queen, who, bowed upon one knee, is presenting a bunch of the tobacco plant to her.
** In the early part of his administration, Governor Spottswood led, in person, an expedition over the Blue Ridge, beyond which no white man's foot had yet trodden in that direction, and obtained glimpses of those glorious valleys which stretch away along the tributaries of the mighty Mississippi. In commemoration of this event, King George the First conferred upon him the honor of knighthood, and in allusion to the fact that he commanded a troop of mounted men on the occasion, he was presented with a silver miniature horseshoe, on which was inscribed the motto, "Thus he swears to cross the mountains."
*** In these discussions the natives, the original proprietors of the soil, were not considered. The intruding Europeans assumed sovereignty and possession without ever pretending to have purchased a rood of the soil from the aboriginal owners. It is related that when Mr. Gist went into the Ohio Valley on a tour of observation for the Ohio Company, a messenger was sent by two Indian sachems to inquire, "Where is the Indian's land? The English claim it all on one side of the river, the French on the other; where does the Indian's land lay." The true answer to that question would have been, "Every where," and the intruders should have withdrawn from the soil and closed their lips in shame.
Jealousy of the French.—Erection of Forts.—Dinwiddie's Measures.—George Washington sent to the French Commandant
dians, and to break their communication between New France or Canada, and Louisiana. With such impressions they resolved on defensive measures—aggressive ones too, if necessary. A pretense was not long wanting. While some English traders were engaged in their vocation near the present site of Pittsburgh, they were seized by some French and Indians, and conveyed to Presque Isle, now the town of Erie, on the lake of that name. The object was to learn from them the designs of the English in Virginia. In retaliation for this outrage, the Twightwees, * a body of Indians friendly to the English, seized some French traders, and sent them to Pennsylvania. Bitter animosity was now engendered, and it was intensified by those national and religious feuds which had so long made the English and French inimical to each other. Finally, the French began the erection of forts on the south side of Lake Erie, sending troops across the lakes with munitions of war, and forwarding bodies of armed men from New Orleans. One fort was built at Presque Isle (now Erie); another at Le Bouf (now Waterford), on the head waters of the Venango (now French Creek ** ), and a third at Venango (now Franklin, the capital of Venango county, Pennsylvania, at the junction of French Creek with the Alleghany). The Ohio Company complained, and Robert Dinwiddie, *** the lieutenant governor of Virginia, within whose jurisdiction the offensive movement occurred, felt called upon to send a formal remonstrance to the French commandant, M. De St. Pierre, and demand a withdrawal of his troops. The mission was an exceedingly delicate one, and demanded the exercise of great courage, discretion, and judgment. George Washington, then a young man of twenty-one, was chosen, from among the hundreds of the Virginia aristocracy, to execute this commission of trust. At the age of nineteen he had received the appointment of adjutant general of one of the four military districts of Virginia, with the rank of major. The appointment was as creditable to the sagacity of Dinwiddie as it was flattering to the young officer.