employed their emissaries to foment the jealousy of the Indians. The
French having in a manner commenced hostilities against the English,
and actually built forts on the territories of the British allies at
Niagara, and on the lake Erie, Mr. Hamilton, governor of Pennsylvania,
communicated this intelligence to the assembly of the province, and
represented the necessity of erecting truck-houses, or places of
strength and security, on the river Ohio, to which the traders might
retire in case of insult or molestation. The proposal was approved, and
money granted for the purpose; but the assembly could not agree about
the manner in which they should be erected; and in the meantime the
French fortified themselves at leisure, and continued to harass the
traders belonging to the British settlements. Repeated complaints of
these encroachments and depredations being represented to Mr. Dinwiddie,
governor of Virginia, he, towards the latter end of this very year, sent
major Washington with a letter to the commanding officer of a fort which
the French had built on the Riviere-au-Beuf, which falls into the Ohio,
not far from the lake Erie. In this letter Mr. Dinwiddie expressed his
surprise that the French should build forts and make settlements on the
river Ohio, in the western part of the colony of Virginia, belonging
to the Crown of Great Britain. He complained of these encroachments, as
well as of the injuries done to the subjects of Great Britain, in open
violation of the law of nations, and of the treaties actually subsisting
between the two crowns. He desired to know by whose authority and
instructions his Britannic majesty's territories had been invaded; and
required him to depart in peace, without further prosecuting a plan
which must interrupt the harmony and good understanding which his
majesty was desirous to continue and cultivate with the most christian
king. To this spirited intimation the officer replied, that it was not
his province to specify the evidence, and demonstrate the right of the
king his master to the lands situated on the river Ohio; but he would
transmit the letter to the marquis du Quesne, and act according to the
answer he should receive from that nobleman. In the meantime, he said
he did not think himself obliged to obey the summons of the English
governor; that he commanded the fort by virtue of an order from his
general, to which he was determined to conform with all the precision
and resolution o