In a letter, some short time after this, to the Lieutenant Governor,
he said, "I do not know that I ever gave your Honour cause to suspect
me of ingratitude; a crime I detest, and would most carefully avoid.
If an open, disinterested behaviour carries offence, I may have
offended; for I have all along laid it down as a maxim, to represent
facts freely and impartially, but not more so to others than to you,
sir. If instances of my ungrateful behaviour had been particularized,
I would have answered them. But I have been long convinced that my
actions and their motives have been maliciously aggravated." A request
that he might be permitted to come to Williamsburg for the settlement
of some accounts, which he was desirous of adjusting under the
inspection of the Lieutenant Governor, who proposed to leave the
province in the following November, was refused in abrupt and
disobliging terms. In answer to the letter containing the refusal,
Colonel Washington, after stating the immoveable disposition of the
inhabitants to leave the country unless more sufficiently protected,
added, "To give a more succinct account of their affairs than I could
in writing, was the principal, among many other reasons, that induced
me to ask leave to come down. It was not to enjoy a party of pleasure
that I asked leave of absence. I have indulged with few of those,
winter or summer."

Mr. Dinwiddie soon afterwards took leave of Virginia, and the
government devolved on Mr. Blair, the President of the Council.
Between him and the commander of the colonial troops the utmost
cordiality existed.

[Sidenote: General Forbes undertakes the expedition against Fort Du
Quesne.]