I don’t know that in the Progress of this Campaign any Thing has passed which can be reputed an Act of Hostility, or that is contrary to the Treaties which subsist between the two Crowns; the Continuation whereof as much interests, and is as pleasing to us, as the _English_. Had you been pleased, Sir, to have descended to particularize the Facts which occasioned your Complaint, I should have had the Honour of answering you in the fullest, and, I am persuaded, most satisfactory Manner. I made it my particular Care to receive Mr _Washington_, with a Distinction suitable to your Dignity, as well as his own Quality and great Merit. I flatter myself that he will do me this Justice before you, Sir; and that he will signify to you in the Manner I do myself, the profound Respect with which I am, _SIR_, Your most humble, and most obedient Servant, LEGARDEUR DE ST. PIERE.” Washington found the Governor’s council was to meet the day following and that his report was desired. Accordingly he rewrote his _Journal_ from the “rough minutes” he had made. From any point of view this document of ten thousand words, hastily written by a lad of twenty-one who had not seen a school desk since his seventeenth year, is far more creditable and remarkable than any of the feats of physical endurance for which the lad is idolized by the youthful readers of our school histories. It is safe to say that many a college bred man of today could not prepare from rough notes such a succinct and polite document as did this young surveyor, who had read few books and studied neither his own nor any foreign language. The author did not “in the least conceive ... that it would ever be published.” Speaking afterward of its “numberless imperfections” he said that all that could recommend it to the public was its truthfulness of fact. Certain features of this first literary work of Washington’s are worthy of remark: his frankness, as in criticising Shingiss’ village as a site for a fort as proposed by the Ohio Company; his exactness in giving details (where he could obtain them) of forts, men, and guns; his estimates of distances; his wise conforming to Indian custom; his careful note of the time of day of important events; his frequent observations of the kinds of the land through which he passed; his knowlege of Indian character. This mission prosecuted with such rare tact and skill was an utter failure, considered from the standpoint of its nominal purpose. St. Piere’s letter was firm, if not defiant. Yet Dinwiddie, despairing of French withdrawal, had secured the information he desired. Already the French had reached the Forks of the Ohio where an English fort was being erected. Peaceful measures were exhausted with the failure of Washington’s embassy. England’s one hope was--war. II. THE STORY OF THE CAMPAIGN.