This mission was toilsome and hazardous. The Envoy would be under the
necessity of passing through an extensive and almost unexplored
wilderness, intersected with rugged mountains and considerable rivers,
and inhabited by fierce savages, who were either hostile to the
English, or of doubtful attachment. While the dangers and fatigues of
this service deterred others from undertaking it, they seem to have
possessed attractions for Mr. Washington, and he engaged in it with
alacrity.

{October 31.}

[Sidenote: His mission to the French on the Ohio.]

On receiving his commission, he left Williamsburg and arrived, on the
14th of November, at Wills' creek, then the extreme frontier
settlement of the English, where guides were engaged to conduct him
over the Alleghany mountains. After surmounting the impediments
occasioned by the snow and high waters, he reached the mouth of Turtle
creek, where he was informed that the French General was dead, and
that the greater part of the army had retired into winter quarters.
Pursuing his route, he examined the country through which he passed
with a military eye, and selected the confluence of the Monongahela
and Alleghany rivers, the place where fort Du Quesne was afterwards
erected by the French, as an advantageous position, which it would be
adviseable to seize and to fortify immediately.

{1754}

{January 16}