Within months, regular French troops, supported by indigenous guides, auxiliaries and large numbers of Indian warriors were rumoured to be moving in large numbers into the headwaters of the Ohio Valley, and on 1 November the Governor of Virginia sent a 21-year-old militia volunteer north to investigate. His name was George Washington. So began the first act in what Americans still call the French and Indian Wars, and which is known in the rest of the world as the Seven Years War.
