Fort Duquesne after the Governor of Canada. In vain was Washington sent
with a few hundred men to take possession of this fort and to assert
the claim of the English to the land. He fell in with a French scouting
party under young Coulon de Jumonville, killed its leader and nine
others, and took more than a score of prisoners--warfare bloody enough
in a time of supposed peace. But the French were now on the Ohio in
greater numbers than the English. At a spot known as the Great Meadows,
where Washington had hastily thrown up defenses, which he called Fort
Necessity, he was forced to surrender, but was allowed to lead his
force back to Virginia, defeated in the first military adventure of his
career. The French took the view that his killing of the young officer
Jumonville was assassination, since no state of war existed, and raised
a fierce clamor that Washington was a murderer--a strange contrast to
his relations with France in the years to come.

What astonishes us in regard to these events is that Britain and France
long remained nominally at peace while they were carrying on active
hostilities in America and sending from Europe armies to fight. There
were various reasons for this hesitation about plunging formally into
war. Each side wished to delay until sure of its alliances in Europe.
During the war ending in 1748 France had fought with Frederick of
Prussia against Austria, and Britain had been Austria's ally. The war
had been chiefly a land war, but France had been beaten on the sea. Now
Britain and Prussia were drawing together and, if France fought them,
it must be with Austria as an ally. Such an alliance offered France
but slight advantage. Austria, an inland power, could not help France
against an adversary whose strength was on the sea; she could not aid
the designs of France in America or in India, where the capable French
leader Dupleix was in a fair way to build up a mighty oriental empire.
Nor had France anything to gain in Europe from an Austrian alliance.
The shoe was on the other foot. The supreme passion of Maria Theresa
who ruled Austria was to recover the province of Silesia which had been
seized in 1740 by Prussia and held--held to this day. Austria could
do little for France but France could do much for Austria. So Austria
worked for this alliance. It is a story of intrigue. Usually in France
the King carried on negotiations with foreign countries only through
his ministers, who knew the real int