_2nd._ The stores are already built at that place for the provisions of the Company, wherein the Ammunition may be laid up, our great guns may also be sent by water whenever we shall think it convenient to attack the Fort. _3rd._ We may easily (having all these conveniences) preserve our men from the ill consequences of inaction, and encourage the _Indians_ our Allies to remain in our interests.” [1] The private _Journal_ kept by Washington on the expedition of the Virginia Regiment in 1754 was composed of rough notes only. It was lost with other papers at the Battle of Fort Necessity and was captured by the French and sent to Paris. Two years later it was published by the French government, after being thoroughly “edited” by a French censor. It was titled “MEMOIRE _contenant le Precis des Faits, avec leurs Pieces Justificatives, pour servir de Reponse aux_ OBSERVATIONS _envoyees, par les Ministres d’Angleterre, dans les Cours de l’Europe. A Paris; de l’Imprimerie Royale, 1756._” In this MEMOIRE, together with portions of Washington’s _Journal_ appear papers, instructions, etc., captured at Braddock’s defeat in 1755. Of the portion of Washington’s _Journal_ published, Washington himself said; “I kept no regular one (Journal) during the Expedition; rough notes of occurrences I certainly took, and find them as certainly and strangely metamorphised, some parts left out which I remember were entered, and many things added that never were thought of, the names of men and things egregiously miscalled, and the whole of what I saw Englished is very incorrect and nonsensical.” The last entry on the _Journal_ is on June 27th., six days previous to the Battle of Fort Necessity. Thus Washington’s march westward in 1754 must be looked upon only as the advance of a van-guard to open the road, bridge the streams and prepare the way for the commanding officer and his army. Nor was there, now, need of haste--had it been possible or advisable to hasten. The landing of the French at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela already thwarted Governor Dinwiddie’s purpose in sending out the expedition “To prevent their (French) building any Forts or making any Settlem’s on that river (Ohio) and more particularly so nigh us as that of Loggstown (fifteen miles below the forks of the Ohio.)” Now that a fort was building, with a French army of a thousand men (as Washington had been erroneously informed) encamped about it, nothing more was to be thought of than a cautious advance.