In 1750 the Ohio Company, formed for the purpose of colonizing the country on the river of that name, surveyed its banks as far as the site of Louisville. The French, resolved to defend their title to the region west of the mountains, crossed Lake Erie, and established posts at Presque Isle, at Le Boeuf, and at Venango on the Allegheny River. Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, sent a messenger to warn the French not to advance. He selected for this task a young man named George Washington, a land surveyor, who, notwithstanding his youth, had made a good impression as a person of capacity and courage, well-fitted for the arduous and delicate undertaking. Washington well performed his task although the French, as might have been expected, paid no heed to his warning. In the spring of 1754, a party of English began to build a fort where Pittsburg now stands. The French drove them off and erected Fort Duquesne. A regiment of Virginia troops was already marching toward the place. Upon the death of its leading officer, George Washington, the lieutenant-colonel, took command. Washington, overwhelmed by the superior numbers of the French, was compelled to surrender, and the French, for the time, were masters of the Ohio. This reverse did not diminish the esteem in which Washington was held by the Virginians, and by those of the mother country who came in contact with him. When General Edward Braddock, in 1755, started on his ill-fated expedition for the capture of Duquesne with a force of about two thousand men, including the British regulars and the colonial militia, Washington accompanied the British general as one of his staff. Braddock was a gallant soldier, but imperious, and self-willed, and he looked almost with contempt upon the American troops. He made a forced march with twelve hundred men in order to surprise the French at Duquesne before they could receive reinforcements. Colonel Dunbar followed with the remainder of the army and the wagon-train. It was a delightful July morning when the British soldiers and colonists crossed a ford of the Monongahela, and advanced in solid platoons along the southern bank of the stream in the direction of the fort. Washington advised a disposition of the troops more in accordance with forest warfare, but Braddock haughtily rejected the advice of the "provincial colonel," as he called Washington. The army moved on, recrossed the river to the north side, and continued the march to Duquesne. The news of the British advance had been carried to the fort by Indian scouts. The French at first thought of abandoning the post, but they decided to attack the British with the aid of Indian allies. De Beaujeu led the French and Indians. The British were proceeding in fancied security when the forest rang with Indian yells, and a volley of bullets and flying arrows dealt death in their ranks. The regular troops were thrown into confusion, and Braddock tried courageously to rally them.