[Footnote 145:  See the summons in Precis des Faits, 101.]

They had acted with their usual promptness.  Their Governor, a practised soldier, knew the value of celerity, and had set his troops in motion with the first opening of spring.  He had no refractory assembly to hamper him; no lack of money, for the King supplied it; and all Canada must march at his bidding.  Thus, while Dinwiddie was still toiling to muster his raw recruits, Duquesne’s lieutenant, Contrecoeur, successor of Saint-Pierre, had landed at Presquisle with a much greater force, in part regulars, and in part Canadians.

Dinwiddie was deeply vexed when a message from Washington told him how his plans were blighted; and he spoke his mind to his friend Hanbury:  “If our Assembly had voted the money in November which they did in February, it’s more than probable the fort would have been built and garrisoned before the French had approached; but these things cannot be done without money.  As there was none in our treasury, I have advanced my own to forward the expedition; and if the independent companies from New York come soon, I am in hopes the eyes of the other colonies will be opened; and if they grant a proper supply of men, I hope we shall be able to dislodge the French or build a fort on that river.  I congratulate you on the increase of your family.  My wife and two girls join in our most sincere respects to good Mrs. Hanbury."[146]

[Footnote 146:  Dinwiddie to Hanbury, 10 May, 1754.]

The seizure of a king’s fort by planting cannon against it and threatening it with destruction was in his eyes a beginning of hostilities on the part of the French; and henceforth both he and Washington acted much as if war had been declared.  From their station at Wills Creek, the distance by the traders’ path to Fort Duquesne was about a hundred and forty miles.  Midway was a branch of the Monongahela called Redstone Creek, at the mouth of which the Ohio Company had built another storehouse.  Dinwiddie ordered all the forces to cross the mountains and assemble at this point, until they should be strong enough to advance against the French.  The movement was critical in presence of an enemy as superior in discipline as he was in numbers, while the natural obstacles were great.  A road for cannon and wagons must be cut through a dense forest and over two ranges of high mountains, besides countless hills and streams.  Washington set all his force to the work, and they spent a fortnight in making twenty miles.  Towards the end of May, however, Dinwiddie learned that he had crossed the main ridge of the Alleghanies, and was encamped with a hundred and fifty men near the parallel ridge of Laurel Hill, at a place called the Great Meadows.  Trent’s backwoodsmen had gone off in disgust; Fry, with the rest of the regiment, was still far behind; and Washington was daily expecting an attack.  Close upon this, a piece of good news, or what seemed such, came over the mountains and gladdened the heart of the Governor.  He heard that a French detachment had tried to surprise Washington, and that he had killed or captured the whole.  The facts were as follows.