Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 5).djvu/142

138 obtained, Forbes wrote Bouquet (September 17): "I believe neither you nor I values one farthing where we get provisions from, provided we are supplyed, or Interest ourselves either with Virginia or Pennsylvania, which last I hope will be damn'd for their treatment of us with the Waggons, and every other thing where they could profit by us from their impositions, altho at the risque of our perdition."

The controversy as to whether Forbes's route should be through Pennsylvania or Virginia serves to bring into clear perspective one of the most interesting and one of the most important phases of our study—the meaning of the building of a road at that time to either one of those colonies. Nothing could emphasize this more than the sharpness of the quarrel and the position of those concerned in it. It meant very much to Pennsylvania to have Forbes cut a road to the Ohio in both of the two ways suggested by Washington to Governor Fouquier—it fortified her frontier and opened a future avenue of trade. The Old Trading Path had been her best course westward and her trade with the Indians