17 42 An Unnecessary War On May 18th 1756 the British and the French suddenly found themselves in a war against each other a war that neither had wanted This Seven Years War would last until 1763 How did such an undesirable conflict arise from what appear to be insignificant origins Who if anyone should bear the blame and what if anything could have been done to prevent it The root causes of the seven years war can be attributed to three governors William Shirley of Massachusetts Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia and Marquis Duquesne of Canada They are the people responsible for the initial conflict that set the gears of war in motion However both the British and French governments also deserve blame for allowing the petty conflict to escalate into a full blown war Had any of these causes not occurred the war would not have happened The initial conflict that led to war was actually quite small Yet it planted the seed that would spiral the situation out of control Of the three governors responsible Virginia s Dinwiddie is by far the most guilty Dinwiddie began governing Virginia in the fall of 1751 He was a selfish leader who wasn t afraid to use his position for personal gain In fact in 1757 Lord Loudoun then titular governor of Virginia asked London to recall Dinwiddie on the grounds that he was using his public office for his own private ends 1 Dinwiddie was one of the principal share holders of the Ohio Land Company a company established in 1748 by the British Board of Trade to exploit Ohio s land He abused his power in the best interest of the company Dinwiddie started by using forced logic to justify British ownership of Ohio He then proceeded to both misinform those in North America that the actions taken by the Ohio Company were orders from London and misinform London with ambiguous language implying that threats to the Company were threats to Virginia He would never refer directly to the company when reporting back 1 Higonnet The Origins of the Seven Years War Journal of Modern History Vol 40 1968 61 to London After encouraging the building of a fort in Ohio a fort that the French later attacked his reports were very vague In his descriptions the French there became the Invaders of British Property the relief column was now The Forces of this Dominion the builders of the company s fort were simply our People and the Fort itself was simply our Fort 2 He reasoned that although London didn t really care about Ohio they did care enough about Virginia to act if threats were presented After sending a letter to the Board of Trade in the June of 1753 warning of an imminent French invasion London did indeed decided to act That August they allowed Dinwiddie to direct British forces for defensive proposes under the condition that they remain on what was ambiguously defined as the undoubted limits of His Majesty s Dominions 3 Although the orders show that the cabinet didn t want to get involved on territory that wasn t already theirs using his forced logic Dinwiddie concluded that the limits of His Majesty s Dominions included Ohio This gave Dinwiddie official orders with which he defend the Ohio company The next time the French invaded British territory Dinwiddie could legitimately launch an offensive Dinwiddie is the most guilty because he was the first one to start claiming ownership of Ohio He used forced logic to legitimize ownership for the sake of the Ohio Company This is important because although ownership of Ohio was unclear the French had been to the area much before the British Dinwiddie encouraged the company despite French protest and threats of retaliation Then to defend the actions of the company actions that were already against the intentions of the British government he misled London into believing that Virginia was being threatened by the French as opposed to the company He escalated the conflict without reporting back to London what was really happening He also requested two regiments of British troops to which London later replied by sending General Braddock There are a few things that the government could have done to prevent or lessen Dinwiddie s 2 Higonnet 63 3 Higonnet 64 involvement in the conflict Although it would not have prevented the initial actions of the Ohio Company had the British given clearer instructions to Dinwiddie regarding the undoubted limits of His Majesty s Dominions Dinwiddie would not have been able to fight the French outside of British boundaries Also if people knew about Dinwiddie s abuse of power in 1757 then perhaps the British government may have been able to find out about it sooner Had they done this in time perhaps they would have been more cautious in dealing with him The British however were not the only ones with an official acting in bad taste The French governor of Canada Duquesne was also heavily involved in creating the conflict in North America Duquesne became the governor of Canada in 1752 His initial orders included the assertion of the French possession of Ohio although this was not in any way intended to be militarily The French were worried that if the British continued to establish themselves in Ohio the French colonies of Canada and Louisiana would become cut off from each other and therefore be vulnerable Yet to accomplish this reassertion Duquesne decided to go about it militarily He organized an army of over 2 000 and unofficially kept pushing back the border of Ohio little by little expanding the French territory He then in 1754 used his army to go on an offensive against British forces starting with Dinwiddie s precious fort Duquesne then proceeded to have Fort Necessity captured by which point he was really over extending himself as even he did not originally believe that it lay on French territory Although the motives for Duquesne s ambitious offensive are not clear there is some speculation that he was involved in fur traders Duquesne does deserves a good portion of the blame for creating the initial conflict because he was the first person to act against the other side offensively He disregarded the French intentions of peaceful assertion and decided to use force instead It was Duquesne s use of force that not only scared Dinwiddie but also caused him to retaliate Unfortunately there isn t really much that could have been done to prevent Duquesne s involvement in the escalation There was no way for the French to know that he would act so aggressively beforehand Plus in 1754 after realizing Duquesne s