inattentive to ... the advantages of situation."

[Sidenote: Attempts to occupy.]

Foreseeing the struggle, the French began to construct a chain of forts
connecting the St. Lawrence settlements with the Mississippi. The chief
strategic point was at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela
rivers,--the present site of Pittsburg. The Ohio company were first on the
ground, and in 1753 took steps to occupy this spot. They were backed up by
orders issued by the British government to the governors of Pennsylvania
and Maryland "to repel force by force whenever the French are found within
the undoubted limits of their province." Thus the French and English
settlements were brought dangerously near together, and it was resolved by
Virginia to send George Washington with a solemn warning to the French. In
October, 1753, he set forth, and returned in December to announce that the
French were determined to hold the country. They drove the few English out
of their new post, fortified the spot, and called it Fort Duquesne. The
crisis seemed to Benjamin Franklin so momentous that at the end of his
printed account of the capture of the post he added a rude woodcut of a
rattlesnake cut into thirteen pieces, with the motto, addressed to the
colonies, "Join or die."

[Sidenote: No compromise.]

This was no ordinary intercolonial difficulty, to be patched up by
agreements between the frontier commanders. Both French and English
officers acted under orders from their courts. England and France were
rivals, not only on the continent, but in the West Indies, in India, and
in Europe. There was no disposition either to prevent or to heal the
breach on the Pennsylvania frontier.