Whether Washington intended to attack the French before he reached Half-King is not known; at the Spring a conference was held and it was immediately decided to attack. Washington did not know and could not have known that Jumonville was an embassador. The action of the French in approaching Great Meadows and then withdrawing and hiding was not the behavior of an embassy. Half-King and his Indians were of the opinion that the French party entertained evil designs, and, as Washington afterwards wrote, “If we had been such fools as to let them (the French) go, they (the Indians) would never have helped us to take any other Frenchmen.” Two scouts were sent out in advance; then, in Indian file, Washington and his men with Half-King and a few Indians followed and “prepared to surround them.” Laurel Hill, the most westerly range of the Alleghenies, trends north and south through Pennsylvania. In Fayette county, about one mile on the summit northward from the National Road, lies Washington’s Spring where Half-King encamped. The Indian trail coursed along the summit northward fifteen miles to Gist’s. On the eastern side, Laurel Hill descends into a valley varying from a hundred to five hundred feet deep. Nearly two miles from the Spring, in the bottom of a valley four hundred feet deep, lay Jumonville’s “embassy.” The attacking party, guided by Indians, who had previously wriggled down the hillside on their bellies and found the French, advanced along the Indian trail and then turned off and began stealthily creeping down the mountain-side. Washington’s plan was, clearly, to surround and capture the French. It is plain he did not understand the ground. They were encamped in the bottom of a valley two hundred yards wide and more than a mile long. Moreover the hillside on which the English were descending abruptly ended on a narrow ledge of rocks thirty feet high and a hundred yards long. Coming suddenly out on the rocks, Washington leading the right division and Half-King the left, it was plain in the twinkling of an eye that it would not be possible to achieve a bloodless victory. Washington therefore gave and received first fire. It was fifteen minutes before the astonished but doughty French, probably now surrounded by Half-King’s Indians, were compelled to surrender. Ten of their number, including their “Embassador” Jumonville, were killed outright and one wounded. Twenty-one prisoners were taken. One Frenchman escaped, running half clothed through the forests to Fort Duquesne with the evil tidings.