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Prior to 1750, neither Pennsylvanians nor Virginians were able to achieve a meaningful advantage in the struggle to assert authority over the Ohio forks. In Pennsylvania, Richard Peters and proprietor Thomas Penn formed a loose expansionist faction that sought to press the colony’s claims to the region , but the opposition of the Assembly prevented them from taking more aggressive action.In Virginia,the Ohio Company experienced some success, obtaining permission from the Crown to plant a settlement at the Ohio forks,but a cautious governor,the opposition of the upper Ohio Indians,and the death of company co-founder Thomas Lee in November 1750 slowed their efforts. Over the next four years, as the specter of a French invasion loomed over the western Pennsylvania frontier, the competition for the region intensified.Both the Pennsylvania expansionists and the Ohio Company upped their efforts to overcome the obstacles arrayed against them,racing to gain advantage before a French military thrust ruined their aspirations. This proved far more difficult for Peters and Penn, who struggled to steer their designs past the stubborn opposition of the Quaker politicians who controlled the Assembly.As the Pennsylvanians faltered,the Ohio Company seized the initiative, emboldened by the willingness of a sympathetic new governor to array provincial resources in support of company’s objectives. But even the political patronage of the governor could not overcome all obstacles .Throughout these years, upper Ohio Indian leaders actively opposed the company’s land claims, while political in-fighting threatened to undermine a Virginia military campaign to seize the Ohio forks,and both of these situations drew the attention of the Crown.As the pace of events quickened, the original antagonists lost control of the struggle for the Ohio forks.· 35 · Two Great Application, Many Arguments, and Much Difficulty 36 a colony sprung from hell In July 1751, Robert Dinwiddie assumed his position as lieutenant governor of Virginia. A seasoned imperial agent, Dinwiddie had turned a successful stint in his family’s Scottish accounting firm into a succession of administrative positions in the British Empire. For sixteen years Dinwiddie was custom’s collector in Bermuda until he was appointed surveyor general of Britain’s colonies in North America.The surveyor general’s office was based in Virginia, where Dinwiddie also occupied a seat on the governor’s council. Although it appears that he played no direct role in the struggle for the Ohio forks prior to 1751, Dinwiddie must have been intimately aware of the Ohio Company’s designs on the region. An opportunist who made little distinction between public and private interests, Dinwiddie saw in the Ohio Company as an opportunity to both enrich and further empower himself , since the company was leaderless and marginally adrift following Lee’s death. He almost immediately immersed himself in the Ohio Company’s efforts to secure their land grant, and in response the company graciously offered the new governor a full share in its venture. It proved too strong a temptation for Dinwiddie to resist.He accepted the invitation, admitting,“I have the success and prosperity of the Ohio Company much at heart.” Dinwiddie quickly rose to a position of prominence among company leaders, as the governor had no reservations about manipulating private, provincial, and even imperial interests to the advantage of his new associates . In his official capacity as lieutenant governor, Dinwiddie prevailed on the Board of Trade to nullify all other claims to the Ohio forks, including those of the Pennsylvania traders and Thomas Penn. Using official channels , he sent the Board of Trade copies of testimony and other evidence detailing what he called the “many irregularities, even murders and robberies . . . committed by the [Pennsylvania] traders” against the Ohio Company. Dinwiddie argued that such actions were an affront to the integrity of all Virginians and could lead to open war between the two colonies.But he offered a simple solution: determine the boundary line between Pennsylvania and Virginia. Dinwiddie believed resolution of the border would validate Virginia’s territorial claims to the Ohio forks and forever quell Pennsylvania ’s ability to “dispute the authority of this province.”1 Dinwiddie’s conviction that Virginia’s claim to the region would supersede that of Pennsylvania was debatable but not necessarily untenable.Theoretically , Virginia’s colonial charter afforded the colony dominion over most of the continent, but Dinwiddie was too calculating to rely on the charter alone. At his disposal was also a map recently completed by British cartographer John Mitchell, who determined...

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