The French officers at a post which they called Venango
received Washington very politely and asked him to supper.
Washington wrote in his diary that, after they had drunk
a good deal of wine, 'they told me that it was their
absolute design to take possession of the Ohio, and by
God they would do it.' When Washington had returned home
and reported, the Virginians soon sent him back with a
small force to turn the French out. But meanwhile the
French had been making themselves much stronger, and on
July 4, 1754, when Washington advanced into the disputed
territory, he was overcome and obliged to surrender--a
strange Fourth of July for him to look back upon!
Exciting events followed rapidly. In 1755 Braddock came
out from England with a small army of regulars to take
command of the British forces in America and drive the
French from the Ohio valley. But there were many
difficulties. The governments of the thirteen British
colonies were jealous of each other and of the government
in Britain; their militia were jealous of the British
regulars, who in turn looked down on them. In the end,
with only a few Virginians to assist him, Braddock marched
into a country perfectly new to him and his men. The
French and Indians, quite at home in the dense forest,
laid an ambush for the British regulars.
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