On this battleground in the western Pennsylvania wilderness, which marked the beginning of the French and Indian War, July 3, 1754, a force of 400 men under young Major Washington was defeated by 900 French and Indian allies, and for the first and last time in his military career Washington surrendered. He stipulated, however, that he and his troops were to have safe conduct back to civilization, and agreed not to build a fort west of the Allegheny Mountains for a year. Washington was then twenty-two years old.

1750

The execution of this plan was, probably, accelerated by an act of the British government. The year after the conclusion of the war, several individuals both in England and Virginia who were associated under the name of the Ohio company, obtained from the crown a grant of six hundred thousand acres of land, lying in the country claimed by both nations. The objects of this company being commercial as well as territorial, measures were taken to derive all the advantages expected from their grant, in both these respects, by establishing trading houses, and by employing persons to survey the country.

The governor of Canada, who obtained early information of this intrusion, as he deemed it, into the dominions of his most christian majesty, wrote to the governors of New York and Pennsylvania, informing them that the English traders had encroached on the French territory by trading with their Indians; and giving notice that, if they did not desist, he should be under the necessity of seizing them wherever they should be found. At the same time the jealousy of the Indians was excited by impressing them with fears that the English were about to deprive them of their country.

His threat having been disregarded, the governor of Canada put it in execution by seizing the British traders among the Twightwees, and carrying them prisoners to Presque-isle, on Lake Erie; where he was erecting a strong fort. About the same time, a communication was opened from Presque-isle, down French creek, and the Alleghany river, to the Ohio. This communication was kept up by detachments of troops, posted at proper distances from each other, in works capable of covering them from an attack made only with small arms.[146]

1753

This territory having been granted as part of Virginia, to the Ohio company, who complained loudly of these aggressions, Dinwiddie, the lieutenant governor of that province, laid the subject before the assembly, and dispatched MAJOR WASHINGTON, the gentleman who afterwards led his countrymen to independence, with a letter to the commandant of the French forces on the Ohio; requiring him to withdraw from the dominions of his Britannic majesty.

This letter was delivered at a fort on the river Le Boeuf, the western branch of French creek, to Monsieur le Guarduer de St. Pierre, the commanding officer on the Ohio, who replied that he had taken possession of the country by the directions of his general, then in Canada, to whom he would transmit the letter of the lieutenant governor, and whose orders he should implicitly obey.

1754

Preparations were immediately made, in Virginia, to assert the rights of the British crown; and a regiment was raised for the protection of the frontiers. Early in the spring, Major Washington had advanced with a small detachment from this regiment into the country to be contended for, where he fell in with and defeated a party of French and Indians who were approaching him in a manner indicating hostile designs. On being joined by the residue of his regiment, the command of which had devolved on him, he made great exertions to pre-occupy the post at the confluence of the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers; but, on his march thither, was met by a much superior body of French and Indians, Defeat at the Little Meadows.who attacked him in a small stockade hastily erected at the Little Meadows, and compelled him, after a gallant defence to capitulate. The French had already taken possession of the ground to which Washington was proceeding, and, having driven off some militia, and workmen sent thither by the Ohio company, had erected thereon a strong fortification called fort Du Quêsne.