did not wish to make enemies of
every man, woman, and child in the new.

[Sidenote: Need of a union between the English colonies.]

But if the power to raise American armies for the common defence, and to
collect money in America for this purpose, was not to be assumed by the
British government, was there any way in which unity and promptness of
action in time of war could be secured? There was another way, if people
could be persuaded to adopt it. The thirteen colonies might be joined
together in a federal union; and the federal government, without
interfering in the local affairs of any single colony, might be clothed
with the power of levying taxes all over the country for purposes of
common defence. The royal governors were inclined to favour a union of
the colonies, no matter how it might be brought about. They thought it
necessary that some decisive step should be taken quickly, for it was
evident that the peace of 1748 was only an armed truce. Evidently a
great and decisive struggle was at hand. In 1750 the Ohio Company,
formed for the purpose of colonizing the valley drained by that river,
had surveyed the country as far as the present site of Louisville. In
1753 the French, taking the alarm, crossed Lake Erie, and began to
fortify themselves at Presque Isle, and at Venango on the Alleghany
river. They seized persons trading within the limits of the Ohio
Company, which lay within the territory of Virginia; and accordingly
Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, selected George Washington--a venturous
and hardy young land-surveyor, only twenty-one years old, but gifted
with a sagacity beyond his years--and sent him to Venango to warn off
the trespassers. It was an exceedingly delicate and dangerous mission,
and Washington showed rare skill and courage in this first act of his
public career, but the French commander made polite excuses and
remained. Next spring the French and English tried each to forestall the
other in fortifying the all-important place where the Alleghany and
Monongahela rivers unite to form the Ohio, the place long afterward
commonly known as the "Gateway of the West," the place where the city of
Pittsburgh now stands. In the course of these preliminary manoeuvres
Washington was besieged in Fort Necessity by overwhelming numbers, and
on July 4, 1754, was obliged to surrender the whole of his force, but
obtained leave to march away. So the French got possession of the
much-coveted situation, and