The troops of that nation had taken possession of a tract of country claimed by Virginia, and had commenced a line of posts, to be extended from the Lakes to the Ohio.

The attention of Mr.Dinwiddie, Lieutenant Governor of that Province, was attracted to these supposed encroachments; and he deemed it his duty to demand, in the name of the King his master, that they should be suspended.
{1753} This mission was toilsome and hazardous.

The Envoy would be under the necessity of passing through an extensive and almost unexplored wilderness, intersected with rugged mountains and considerable rivers, and inhabited by fierce savages, who were either hostile to the English, or of doubtful attachment.

While the dangers and fatigues of this service deterred others from undertaking it, they seem to have possessed attractions for Mr.Washington, and he engaged in it with alacrity.
{October 31.} [Sidenote: His mission to the French on the Ohio.] On receiving his commission, he left Williamsburg and arrived, on the 14th of November, at Wills' creek, then the extreme frontier settlement of the English, where guides were engaged to conduct him over the Alleghany mountains.

After surmounting the impediments occasioned by the snow and high waters, he reached the mouth of Turtle creek, where he was informed that the French General was dead, and that the greater part of the army had retired into winter quarters.
Pursuing his route, he examined the country through which he passed with a military eye, and selected the confluence of the Monongahela and Alleghany rivers, the place where fort Du Quesne was afterwards erected by the French, as an advantageous position, which it would be adviseable to seize and to fortify immediately.
{1754} {January 16} After employing a few days among the Indians in that neighbourhood, and procuring some of their chiefs to accompany him, whose fidelity he took the most judicious means to secure, he ascended the Alleghany river.