This expedition was in no sense the result of general agitation against French encroachment. And, as in Virginia, so it was in other colonies to which Governor Dinwiddie appealed; the Governors said they had received no instructions; the validity of English title to the lands upon which the French were alleged to have encroached was doubted; no one wished to precipitate a war through rash zeal. Before the bill voting ten thousand pounds “for the encouragement and protection of the settlers on the Mississippi,” as it was called, passed the House of Burgesses, Governor Dinwiddie had his patience well-nigh exhausted, but he overlooked both the doubts raised as to England’s rights in the West, and personal slights, and signed the bill which provided the expenses of this memorable expedition of the Virginia Regiment in 1754. Major Washington was located at Alexandria, on the upper Potomac, in February where he superintended the rendezvous and the transportation of supplies and cannon. It was found necessary to resort to impressments to raise the required quota of men. As early as February 19th, so slow were the drafts and enlistments, Governor Dinwiddie issued a proclamation granting two hundred thousand acres of land on the Ohio to be divided among the officers and men who would serve in the expedition. This had its effect. By April 20th Washington arrived at Will’s Creek (Cumberland, Maryland) with three companies, one under Captain Stephen joining him on the way. The day previous, however, he met a messenger sent from Captain Trent on the Ohio announcing that the arrival of a French army was hourly expected. And on the day following, at Will’s Creek, he was informed of the arrival of the French on what is now the site of Pittsburg and the withdrawal of the Virginian force under Trent from the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela whither they had been sent to build a fort for the protection of the Ohio Company. This information he immediately forwarded to the Governors of Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Fancy the state of mind of this vanguard of the Virginian army at the receipt of this news. It was, then, at the last frontier fort, eleven companies strong. Their order was to push on to the Ohio, drive off the French (which was then reported to number a thousand men) and build a fort. Before it the only road was the Indian path hardly wide enough to admit the passage of a pack-horse. A ballot was cast among Washington’s Captains--the youngest of whom was old enough to have been his father--and the decision was to advance. The Indian path could at least be widened and bridges built as far as the Monongahela. There they determined to erect a fort and await orders and reinforcements. The reasons for this decision are given as follows in Washington’s _Journal_ of 1754:[1]. “_1st._ That the mouth of _Red-Stone_ is the first convenient place on the River _Monongahela_.