In 1753 Governor Dinwiddie sent
Washington on a mission to the French commander on the Ohio, to warn him
to cease trespassing on English territory, a mission which Washington
fulfilled, under considerable hardship and some peril, with eminent
success. Thus early, for he was then only twenty-two, Washington gained
that thorough understanding of the North American river system which
enabled him, many years afterward, to construct the Republic of the United
States upon the lines of least resistant intercommunication. And
Washington's conception of the problem and his solution thereof were, in
substance, this:
The American continent, west of the mountains and south of the Great
Lakes, is traversed in all directions by the Mississippi and its
tributaries, but we may confine our attention to two systems of
watercourses, the one to the west, forming by the Wisconsin and the main
arm of the Mississippi, a thoroughfare from Lake Michigan to the Gulf; and
the other by French Creek and the Allegheny, broken only by one easy
portage, affording a perfect means of access to the Ohio, a river which
has always operated as the line of cleavage between our northern and
southern States. The French starting from Quebec floated from Lake Erie
down the Allegheny to Pittsburgh, the English ascended the Potomac to
Cumberland, and thence, following the most practicable watercourses,
advanced on the French position at the junction of the Allegheny and the
Monongahela.
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