Col. Washington, gained invaluable experience in the French % Indian War. He actually started in Cumberland, Md., where he built a fort and then a road through very mountainous terrain, on his way West into Pa. and Fort Pitt/Duquesne, by way of Fort Necessity, where they were overwhelmed and surrendered.
He got his ass handed to him, but managed an amiable surrender to live and fight another day.
Valuable experience. Then General Braddock enters the picture to assist Washington. His fate was worse, shocking the Brits who believed Washington to be an incompetent Colonial and the reason for the initial defeat.
Washington was hardly a toad though. We were all British subjects prior to Revolution, to come a little later.
“toady’, not ‘toad’.