The troops moved forward with slow and painful steps until they reached fort Du Quesne, of which they took peaceable possession; the garrison having on the preceding night, after evacuating and setting it on fire, proceeded down the Ohio in boats.
To other causes than the vigour of the officer who conducted this enterprise, the capture of this important place is to be ascribed.

The naval armaments of Britain had intercepted the reinforcements designed by France for her colonies; and the pressure on Canada was such as to disable the governor of that province from detaching troops to fort Du Quesne.

Without the aid of these causes, the extraordinary and unaccountable delays of the campaign must have defeated its object.
The works were repaired, and the new fort received the name of the great minister, who, with unparalleled vigour and talents, then governed the nation.
After furnishing two hundred men from his regiment as a garrison for fort Pitt, Colonel Washington marched back to Winchester; whence he soon afterwards proceeded to Williamsburg, to take his seat in the General Assembly, of which he had been elected a member by the county of Frederick, while at fort Cumberland.
A cessation of Indian hostility being the consequence of expelling the French from the Ohio, Virginia was relieved from the dangers with which she had been threatened; and the object for which alone he had continued in the service, after perceiving that he should not be placed on the permanent establishment, was accomplished.

His health was much impaired, and his domestic affairs required his attention.
[Sidenote: Resignation and marriage of Colonel Washington.] Impelled by these and other motives of a private nature, he determined to withdraw from a service, which he might now quit without dishonour; and, about the close of the year, resigned his commission, as colonel of the first Virginia regiment, and commander-in-chief of all the troops raised in the colony.
[Illustration: The Washington Family Burial Ground _Wakefield, Westmoreland County, Virginia_ _Here rest the mortal remains of George Washington's great-grandfather, Colonel John Washington, who came to Virginia in 1658 and was buried here in 1677; of his grandfather, Lawrence Washington, buried in 1697; of his grandmother, Jane (Butler), in 1729; of his father, Augustine Washington, in 1743; and other members of the Washington family._] The officers whom he had commanded were greatly attached to him.

They manifested their esteem and their regret at parting, by a very affectionate address,[8] expressive of the high opinion they entertained both of his military and private character.
[Footnote 8: See note No.III.at the end of the volume.] This opinion was not confined to the officers of his regiment.