When the Assembly met in November, 1753, Dinwiddie told them that a large body of French regulars, accompanied by Indian allies, had marched down from Canada into the Ohio region and had built a fort there. The King had commanded him to lay before them a request for funds to defeat their designs, and to purchase gifts for the friendly Indians. The Burgesses were fully aware of the danger. For the French to build a chain of forts on the Monongahela and the Ohio to connect with those on the Mississippi would make a barrier to further expansion of the English colonies to the west. It would also constitute an ever present threat to their frontier, since in future wars the way would be open to forays of hostile Indians. Such men as Joshua Fry, Edmund Pendleton, John Robinson, and Benjamin Harrison may have realized that the fate of Virginia and of all English North America hung in the balance. But for the moment the Burgesses were more interested in preserving their liberty than their safety. They began by considering the complaints of several counties against the pistole fee. Dinwiddie accused the Reverend William Stith, President of the College of William and Mary, of inciting the people against the fee. Stith was his personal enemy, he thought, because he had opposed his appointment as Commissary of the clergy.[3] So he wrote to the Bishop of London suggesting that if he would advise Stith "to be peaceable and quiet and teach the doctrine of love," it would make him more easy in his government.[4] If it was Stith who aroused the people against the pistole fee, he made a good job of it. Henrico County protested, Chesterfield protested, Albemarle protested, Cumberland, Amelia, Dinwiddie Counties protested. [Illustration: Governor Dinwiddie. Portrait in the National Portrait Gallery of London. Reproduced by permission.] [Illustration: The General Court in the Old Capitol at Williamsburg. Courtesy of Colonial Williamsburg, Inc.] The Burgesses were deeply concerned. In an address to the Lieutenant Governor they declared that their duty in the discharge of the trust reposed in them by the people required them to ask him by what authority he demanded the fee. He replied that he had acted on his own authority, with the advice of the Council. And he intimated that the taking of the fee was a thing that did not concern them.