ed no compensation save the bare amount of
his expenses.

The governor and council resolved to raise two companies, of one hundred
men each, the one to be enlisted by him at Alexandria, and the other by
Captain Trent on the frontier, the command of both being given to
Washington. He received orders to march as soon as practicable to the
fork of the Ohio, and complete a fort, supposed to have been already
commenced there by the Ohio Company. The assembly which met December,
1753, refused Dinwiddie supplies for resisting the French encroachments,
"because they thought their privileges in danger," and they did not
apprehend much danger from the French. The governor called the assembly
together again in January, 1754, when at length, after much persuasion,
they appropriated ten thousand pounds of the colonial currency for
protecting the frontier against the hostile attempts of the French. The
bill, however, was clogged with provisoes against the encroachments of
prerogative. Dinwiddie increased the military force to a regiment of
three hundred men, and the command was given to Colonel Joshua Fry, and
Major Washington was made lieutenant-colonel. Cannon and other military
equipments were sent to Alexandria. The English minister, the Earl of
Holdernesse, also ordered the governor of New York to furnish two
independent companies, and the governor of South Carolina one, to
co-operate in this enterprise.

Early in April, 1754, Washington, with two companies, proceeded to the
Great Meadows. At Will's Creek, on the twenty-fifth, he learned that an
ensign, in command of Trent's company, had surrendered, on the
seventeenth, the unfinished fort at the fork of the Ohio, (now
Pittsburg,) to a large French force, which had come down under
Contrecoeur from Venango, with many pieces of cannon, batteaux, canoes,
and a large body of men. This was regarded as the first open act of
hostility between France and England in North America. In the war which
ensued Great Britain indeed triumphed gloriously, yet that triumph
served only to bring on in its train the revolt of the colonies and the
dismemberment of the empire.

Washington, upon hearing of the surrender of the fort, marched slowly
for the mouth of Red Stone Creek, preparing the roads for the passage of
cannon which were to follow. Governor Dinwiddie, about the same time,
repaired to Winchester for the purpose of holding a treaty with the
Indians, which, however, failed, only two or t