provoke a smile, but in the main a better manual of conduct could not be put into the hands of a youth. The whole code evinces that rigid propriety and self-control to which he subjected himself, and by which he brought all the impulses of a somewhat ardent temper under conscientious government.'

About this time, when he left school, his somewhat ardent temper,' as Irving calls it, had involved him in a school-boy love affair. The probability is that the object of his adoration was quite unaware of it. At all events, whether avowed or concealed, his passion had the same end as most school-boy passions, it died away when his attention was demanded by some active occupation.

At the age of sixteen George Washington left school, ready to undertake business as a land-surveyor. His old friend, Lord Fairfax, was the first to employ him, and gave him a commission to survey and report on his vast unexplored possessions, that stretched between the Potomac and the Rappahannock, and over the Alleghany Mountains far into the Shenandoah valley. Here and there were small clearings with families of settlers, but the greater part of the region was wilderness, untrodden but by the hunter and the Indian. It was Washington's introduction to scenes where he was to reap much fame. Washington, accompanied by George William Fairfax, started on the expedition in March 1748. From the very beginning, his diary shows him to be a man of car:ful, shrewd observation, too much occupied by the practical matters of his journey to bestow much attention on its picturesque or romantic side. After more than a month of roughing it, the young men returned, Washington reaching Mount Vernon on April 12, 1748. Lord Fairfax was fully

satisfied with his careful young surveyor, and used his influence successfully in obtaining for him the appointment of public surveyor. Indirectly the appointment benefited Washington's patron, for it secured an official character for the newly-finished surveys of his estate; but no personal influence could have obtained such a post for so young a man, had there not been an unusual maturity in the latter. Allowance must be made for the youth of the colony in estimating the early advance of its citizens to positions which in older countries are filled by tried men; but there is little doubt that Washington's character, naturally precocious and steady, had been strengthened and developed, both by his position as the eldest son of a widowed mother, and by the responsibilities and difficulties of his surveying expeditions. Into his public office Washington carried his unfailing accuracy and method; whatever he undertook to do he did thoroughly, and his surveys were invariably found correct. It was rare that any one took the trouble or expense to resurvey any land that had been through Washington's hands professionally. The almost completely uninhabited and unexplored character of the county of which he was surveyor gave Washington full occupation, and rendered his office a lucrative one. But it had a more valuable effect, for it not only accustomed him to the life and ways of the wilderness, but it gave him a practical knowledge of a country he was afterwards to traverse as a military leader, and it exercised him in taking comprehensive, swift, and accurate views of large tracts of country, an accomplishment which stood him in good stead during the War of Independence. Three or four years passed thus. One of Washington's most frequent resting-places was Greenway Court, a lodge built by Lord

Fairfax for himself beyond the Blue Ridge. There he spent. much of his leisure in reading English history, and in studying the Spectator, and the works of Addison, traces of which occur sometimes in his despatches as general.

Meanwhile the theatre on which he was first to exhibit publicly the qualities he was developing was gradually but surely being formed. The borders of the French and the English possessions on the continent of North America were approaching too closely for tranquillity. Ill-feeling arose

betwixt the two nations as to the respective boundaries. France claimed the entire valley of the Mississippi and its tributaries, and demanded that Britain should restrict its claims to the lands east of the Alleghanies; the British, on the other hand, basing their right on the possession of the sea-coast, claimed territory stretching indefinitely westwards. The most bitterly contested region was the Ohio valley, on the north-west confines of Virginia. The main inducement to the English was the fur trade, and an influential trading association, 'The Ohio Company,' was chartered in 1749, with a grant of half a million acres to the west of the Alleghany range. Both Augustine and Lawrence Washington were members of the company, and the latter soon came to have the chief management of it. The French, though much fewer in number than the British, were not prepared to see their rights invaded. Relying on the military care with which their settlements had been chosen, their friendly relations with the majority of the Indian tribes, and the want of union among the British colonies, they sent officers into the disputed lands, ordering the British traders to desist and depart. The dispute grew warmer, and both nations began to make warlike preparations. Virginia was divided into military districts, each

with an adjutant-general, holding the rank of major and receiving £150 a year, to superintend the militia. George Washington, though only nineteen years of age, received the appointment to this post for the district in which he lived. With characteristic thoroughness, he began to learn his new duties practically. He sought out military veterans to teach him fencing and drill and military tactics, and he borrowed and carefully read all available treatises on the subject.

A temporary check was given to his military career by a voyage to Barbadoes, made in September 1751, with his brother Lawrence, who was slowly dying of consumption. On this, apparently the only occasion on which George Washington ever left his native country, he kept a diary as regularly and methodically as ever. Not much of importance occurred to him in Barbadoes, unless we may reckon among important events his first sight of a dramatic representation, on which occasion George Barnwell was given; and a short attack of small-pox, which left his face slightly marked ever afterwards. George returned to Mount Vernon in February 1752, at first with the view of escorting his sister-in-law to her feeble husband. But, before they started, Lawrence himself hastened back to his home, only to die, as he sadly and too truly said. The ample estate of Mount Vernon was bequeathed in liferent to Lawrence's widow; after her death it was to pass to her infant daughter. The latter lived till she was eighteen, and died unmarried; and the estate, in terms of Lawrence's will, became the property of George Washington, with whose name it is inseparably associated. George was appointed one of his brother's executors; and the confidence in his ability and integrity was so great, that practically this young man of

B

twenty was entrusted with the whole management of the large and valuable property.

The intervening year had not lessened the complications in the Ohio valley. The French had assumed a threatening and hostile attitude; and already one mission to them had failed. General Dinwiddie, governor of Virginia, resolved to send another expostulatory message; and his choice fell on Major Washington as a person well fitted to fulfil a mission which required physical strength and moral energy, a courage to cope with savages, and a sagacity to negotiate with white men.' His whole previous career, and his acquaintance with the affairs of the Ohio Company, through his brother Augustine, pointed him out at once as the best man for the position. On October 30, 1753, his commission was signed, and on that very day he left Williamsburg for a 600 miles' journey, through wilds and wood. His mission was to deliver a letter from Dinwiddie to the officer commanding at the French headquarters, and bring back an answer. At the same time, he was to glean all the information he could about the French forts and troops, and to enter into friendly relations with the Indians.

Washington was accompanied by four or five white men, and later was joined by Indians with canoes. The French commander was at a fort on the west fork of French Creek, fifteen miles south of Lake Erie. Efforts were there made to delay the young envoy and to seduce his Indian allies, but he faced them with firmness, and on December 16 started with his reply. The journey homewards was even more arduous and dangerous than the journey outward. Ice interfered with the navigation of the rivers, and snow impeded travel by land. The horses became feeble, and