The Company's men were busy blazing trails
through the territory and building fortified posts. But the
French dominated the territory. They had built and occupied with
troops Fort Le Boeuf on French Creek, a stream flowing into the
Allegheny. We may imagine Dinwiddie's rage at this violation of
British soil by French soldiers and how he must have sputtered to
the young George Washington, when he summoned that officer and
made him the bearer of a letter to the French commander at Fort
Le Boeuf, to demand that French troops be at once withdrawn from
the Ohio.
Washington made the journey to Fort Le Boeuf in December, 1753,
but the mission of course proved fruitless. Dinwiddie then wrote
to London urging that a force be sent over to help the colonies
maintain their rights and, under orders from the Crown, suggested
by himself, he wrote to the governors of all the other colonies
to join with Virginia in raising troops to settle the ownership
of the disputed territory. From Governor Dobbs of North Carolina
he received an immediate response. By means of logic, sarcasm,
and the entire force of his prerogatives, Dinwiddie secured from
his own balking Assembly 10,000 pounds with which to raise
troops. From Maryland he obtained nothing. There were three
prominent Marylanders in the Ohio Company, but--or because of
this--the Maryland Assembly voted down the measure for a military
appropriation.
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