The French, as we have already said, had in part carried out their plan of a chain of forts, to connect their more recent settlements on the Mississippi with their earlier ones on the St. Lawrence, when in 1750 a number of gentlemen of Virginia, among whom was Lawrence Washington, the grandfather of the celebrated George, applied to the British parliament for an act for incorporating “the Ohio Company,” and granting them 600,000 acres of land on the Ohio river. This was done; the tract was surveyed, and trade commenced with the Indians. The jealousy of the French was roused; and the Marquis du Quesne, governor of Canada, complained to the authorities of New York and Pennsylvania, threatening to seize their traders if they did not quit this territory. The trade went on as before, and the French carried out their threat, burning the village of an Indian tribe which refused submission, and seizing the English traders and their merchandise; and the following year the number and importance of the French forts was increased. Robert Dinwiddie, at that time royal governor of Virginia, alarmed at those violent proceedings, purchased permission of the Indians on the Monongahala to build a fort on the junction of that river with the Allegany, and determined to send a trusty messenger to the French commandant at Venango, to require explanation and the release of the captured traders. It was late in the season, and the embassy demanded both courage and wisdom. A young man of two-and-twenty, a major in the militia, and by profession a land-surveyor, and who when only sixteen had been employed as such by Lord Fairfax on his property in the Northern Neck, was selected for this service. This young man was GEORGE WASHINGTON. The journey, about 400 miles through the untracked forest, and at the commencement of winter, though full of peril and wild adventure, was performed successfully. Washington was well received by the commandant, St. Pierre, who promised, after two days’ deliberation, to transmit his message to his superiors in Canada; and all unconscious of the present or future importance of their guest, who was making accurate observations as to the strength of the fort, the French officers revealed to him, over their wine, the intentions of France to occupy the whole country.