"Join or Die."%--Meantime the legislature of Virginia voted L10,000 for the defense of the Ohio valley, and promised a land bounty to every man who would volunteer to fight the French and Indians.

Joshua Frye was made colonel, and Washington lieutenant colonel of the troops thus to be raised.

As some time must elapse before the ranks could be filled, Washington took seventy-five men and (in March, 1754) set off to help Trent; but he had not gone far on his way when Ensign Ward met him (where Cumberland, Md., now is) and told him all about the surrender.
Accounts of the affair were at once sent to the governors of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
[Illustration: JOIN, or DIE.] In publishing one of these in the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, Franklin inserted the above picture at the top of the account.[1] [Footnote 1: There is an old superstition, then very generally believed, that if one cuts a snake in pieces and allows the pieces to touch, the snake will not die, but will live and become whole again.

By this picture Franklin meant that unless the colonies joined for defense against the French they would die; that is, be conquered.] %81.

Albany Plan of Union.%--The picture was apt for the following reason.