The French tried
to entice away his Indians and he says, "I cannot say that ever
in my life I suffered so much anxiety." On the journey back he
nearly perished when he fell into an ice-cold stream and was
obliged to spend the night on a tiny island in frozen clothing.
He brought comfort as cold to the waiting Dinwiddie.
The French meanwhile were always a little ahead of the English in
their planning. Early in April, 1754, a French force of five or
six hundred men from Canada, which had set out while Quebec was
still in the icy grip of winter, reached the upper waters of the
Ohio. They attacked and destroyed a fort which the English had
begun at the forks where now stands Pittsburgh, and, in its
place, began a formidable one, called Fort Duquesne after the
Governor of Canada. In vain was Washington sent with a few
hundred men to take possession of this fort and to assert the
claim of the English to the land. He fell in with a French
scouting party under young Coulon de Jumonville, killed its
leader and nine others, and took more than a score of
prisoners--warfare bloody enough in a time of supposed peace.
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