The governor had raised, with great difficulty, three hundred men.

They were called the Virginia Regiment.

An English gentleman named Joshua Fry was appointed the colonel, and Washington their major.
Fry was at Alexandria, on the Potomac, with half the regiment.
Washington, with the other half, had pushed forward to the storehouse at Wills Creek, which was to form the base of operations.

Besides these, Captain Trent, with a band of backwoodsmen, had crossed the mountain to build a fort at the forks of the Ohio, where Pittsburgh now stands.
Trent had gone back to Wills Creek, leaving Ensign Ward, with forty men, at work upon the fort, when, on the 17th of April, a swarm of canoes came down the Allegheny, with over five hundred Frenchmen, who planted cannon against the unfinished stockade, and summoned the ensign to surrender.

He had no recourse but to submit, and was allowed to depart, with his men, across the mountains.
The French at once set to, to build a strong fort, which they named Fort Duquesne.