xviii Letter of Transmittal.

of commissioners from each colony to attend a conference to be held at Albany
for the purpose of renewing the Covenant Chain with the Six Nations of In-
dians, at which presents were to be presented to the Indians with a view to assur-
ing their firmer adherence to the British cause. With this communication from
the Lords were also presented letters to Sharpe from James DeLancey, Governor
of New York, enclosing one from the officer commanding at Oswego, one from
William Shirley, Governor of New England, and one of even more interest
to Marylanders from Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia, asking that
Maryland at once send men and supplies to join the Virginia troops at Will's
Creek, their rendezvous at the head of the Potomac, with a view to protecting
the fort on the Ohio and thus preventing the French from building additional
fortifications on that river. With his letter, Dinwiddie enclosed to Sharpe the
letter from Legardeur de St. Pierre, the French commandant of the Fort de
la Riviere au Beuf on the Ohio, brought back by Colonel George Washington
in reply to Dinwiddie's letter ordering the French to withdraw at once from
what he declared to be British territory, in which St. Pierre politely, but firmly,
refused to abandon the fort. The St. Pierre letter appears in the official pro-
ceedings of the Lower House only in its English translation, but from the fact
that under the head of " Assembly Affairs " in the Maryland Gazette for
March 7, 1754, it appears both in French and in translation, it is certain that
Dinwiddie transmitted to Sharpe the French version. As far as can be learned
this letter is now reproduced in its French form for the first time since it ap-
peared in the contemporary colonial newspapers. It does not appear in French
in either the Williamsburg or London editions of Washington's Journal which
were published soon after his return, nor is the original letter to be found among
the Dinwiddie Papers in the Virginia State Library.

Numerous messages then passed between the Governor and the Lower House
in which Sharpe urged that provision be made to send commissioners to the
Albany Conference with the Iroquois Indians, and that steps be taken to dis-
patch an expedition to the Ohio to help the Virginians. In one of these mes-
sages the Governor states that the report declaring that the Virginians had
delayed making a grant was untrue, as ten thousand pounds had just been
voted for that purpose. Much to Sharpe's disgust the Lower House, while
agreeing to provide for the Albany Conference, refused to make an appropria-
tion for the Ohio expedition, not only on the grounds of its great expense
but because they chose to construe the instructions from the Earl of Holdernesse,
received not long since, as forbidding the use of force against the French
except in case of actual invasion. A bill was then introduced in the Lower
House and passed by it, entitled, " An Act for His Majesty's Service," pro-
viding that five hundred pounds be appropriated for the Albany Conference,