The Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, in the year 1753, the titular Governor being in England, was Robert Dinwiddie, a cross-grained Scotchman. He had none of the arts of popularity, but none the less was a watchful guardian of his country's interests. Like William Shirley in Massachusetts, he was a determined opponent of French pretensions; but he was less tactful than Shirley in managing a colonial Legislature, and less happily placed, in that the Legislatures of the southern provinces were far behind the New Englanders in public spirit. Hearing of the French advance from Lake Erie, he lost no time in making a counter claim, and sent a messenger to Fort Le Boeuf to warn off foreign trespassers from what he conceived to be the domain of the King of England. The messenger was George Washington, just come to man's estate. [Sidenote: _George Washington's first mission._] [Sidenote: _Apathy of the southern colonies._] In November, 1753, Washington left Wills Creek. In {231} January, 1754, he returned to Virginia, having in the depth of winter traversed the frost-bound backwoods, and risked his life in crossing the Alleghany river. His journey in either direction took him by the old Indian town of Venango, at the confluence of the French Creek with the Alleghany, where there had been an English trading house: this was now occupied by a French outpost. There could be no doubt that the Governor of Canada intended to be master of the Ohio. Still the British colonies remained apathetic or half-hearted. Virginia voted 10,000 pounds; North Carolina gave some money; a handful of troops in Imperial pay was placed at Dinwiddie's disposal; but the money and the men were utterly inadequate to the occasion, and Pennsylvania, the state which, with Virginia, was most concerned, did nothing at all. For Pennsylvania was the home of Quakers and Germans, the former averse to war on principle, the latter indifferent to the conflicting claims of alien races. [Sidenote: _The French build Fort Duquesne._] The crisis came on apace. In February, 1754, a month after Washington's return, Dinwiddie sent a small detachment over the mountains to build a fort at the junction of the Monongahela and Alleghany. While the work was in hand, a strong Canadian force came down in April from the north and overpowered the Virginians. A fort was built, but it was a French fort, and became memorable in history under the name of Fort Duquesne. Dinwiddie determined to drive the French back, if possible, from this new position, and he set Washington to the task--impossible to perform with the only available troops, amounting to 300 or 400 men. [Sidenote: _Washington marches on Fort Duquesne._] [Sidenote: _Death of Jumonville._] [Sidenote: _Surrender of Fort Necessity and retreat of Washington._]