He was as honest as the day--as honest as he
was fearless and fussy. But he had no patience; he wanted things
done and done at once, and his way was THE way to do them. People
who did not think as he thought didn't THINK at all. On this
drastic premise he went to work. There was of course continuous
friction between him and the House of Burgesses. Dinwiddie had
all a Scot's native talent for sarcasm. His letters, his
addresses, perhaps in particular his addresses to the House,
bristled with satirical thrusts at his opponents. If he had
spelled out in full all the words he was so eager to write, he
would have been obliged to lessen his output; so he used a
shorthand system of his own, peculiar enough to be remarkable
even though abbreviations were the rule in that day. Even the
dignity of Kings he sacrificed to speed, and we find "His
Majesty" abbreviated to "H M'y"; yet a smaller luminary known as
"His Honor" fares better, losing only the last letter--"His
Hono." "Ho." stands for "house" and "yt" for "that," "what,"
"it," and "anything else," as convenient. Many of his letters
wind up with "I am ve'y much fatig'd." We know that he must have
been!
It was a formidable task that confronted Dinwiddie--to possess
and defend the Ohio. Christopher Gist returned in 1751, having
surveyed the valley for the Ohio Company as far as the Scioto and
Miami rivers, and in the following year the survey was ratified
by the Indians.
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