The
brave, courteous, soldierly lines of the frontier deserve to be heard to-
day both in France and America:
"I am here by Virtue of the Orders of my General; and I entreat you, Sir,
not to doubt, one Moment, but that I am determined 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 [of
repossession] anything passed which can be reputed an Act of Hostility or
is contrary to the Treaties which subsist between the two Crowns.... Had
you been pleased, Sir, to have descended to particularize the Facts which
occasioned your Complaints I should have had the Honor of answering you in
the fullest, and, I am persuaded, most satisfactory Manner."
In the spring the two hundred canoes which Washington saw moored by the
Riviere aux Boeufs carried the builders of Fort Duquesne and a garrison
for it down La Belle Riviere, and a little later is heard the volley of
the Virginia backwoodsmen up on the Laurel ridges a little way back from
Duquesne, the volley which began the strife that armed the civilized
world--the backwoodsmen commanded by the Virginia youth, George
Washington.
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