He showed arrogant confidence in his veteran troops and contempt for the amateur soldiers of whom Washington was one.

In a wild country where rapid movement was the condition of success Braddock would halt, as Washington said, "to level every mole hill and to erect bridges over every brook." His transport was poor and Washington, a lover of horses, chafed at what he called "vile management" of the horses by the British soldier.

When anything went wrong Braddock blamed, not the ineffective work of his own men, but the supineness of Virginia.

"He looks upon the country," Washington wrote in wrath, "I believe, as void of honour and honesty." The hour of trial came in the fight of July, 1755, when Braddock was defeated and killed on the march to the Ohio.
Washington told his mother that in the fight the Virginian troops stood their ground and were nearly all killed but the boasted regulars "were struck with such a panic that they behaved with more cowardice than it is possible to conceive." In the anger and resentment of this comment is found the spirit which made Washington a champion of the colonial cause from the first hour of disagreement.
That was a fatal day in March, 1765, when the British Parliament voted that it was just and necessary that a revenue be raised in America.
Washington was uncompromising.

After the tax on tea he derided "our lordly masters in Great Britain." No man, he said, should scruple for a moment to take up arms against the threatened tyranny.