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Instructed by Governor Dinwiddie in the fall of 1753 to evaluate the French military presence along the Ohio River and deliver a letter requesting their departure from the region, twenty-two-year-old George Washington returned from his mission to both official and popular acclaim. Accepting a commission as lieutenant colonel of Virginia forces, he wrote in typically self-effacing eighteenth-century fashion of his intention "strictly to adhere to all the proper Rules (as far as it is in my power) and discipline of the Profession I have now enter'd into; I am vain enough to believe, I shall not be quite an unfit Member for it; but in time, shall be able to recompense for the present indulgences." Washington was busy gathering recruits for the Virginia Regiment in anticipation of an expedition against the French. The offer of bounty lands had brought together "a number of selfwill'd, ungovernable People" that Washington labored to form into a cohesive unit. Within a few weeks he would set out on a mission that would lead to a series of confrontations with the French, the controversial killing of one of their commanders, the sieur de Jumonville, and Washington's own surrender of Fort Necessity. Ultimately, some observers in England laid responsibility for the start of the Seven Years' (or French and Indian) War squarely at Washington's feet. The Virginia Historical Society acquired an extensive series of the correspondence from this period between Washington and Dinwiddie in 1881 through the gift of William W. Corcoran. This important letter fills a significant gap in that set of papers.
Image rights owned by the Virginia Historical Society. |
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