and ingenuity to meet and overcome difficulties-yet all these qualities he deemed combined in Washington, who had barely reached the age of sixteen years. The committing of so important a trust to one so young, seems almost inconceivable, and this fact is one of the best indications of what the youth must have been, not only in bone and muscle, but in brain, self-reliance, and maturity, at an age when most boys are thinking more of their balls and kites than of the serious duties of life.

Washington eagerly accepted the proposal of Lord Fairfax, and immediately set about his preparations for departure, which occupied but a few days. In company with George William Fairfax, a young man of twentytwo years, son of William Fairfax, he set out in the saddle, during the month of March, 1748. Mr. John S. C. Abbott, in his Life of Washington, describes the experience of the young men in a manner characteristically picturesque. He says:

"The crests of the mountains were still whitened with ice and snow. Chilling blasts swept the plains. The streams were swollen into torrents by the spring rains. The Indians, however, whose hunting parties ranged these forests, were at that time friendly. Still there were vagrant bands wandering here and there, ever ready to kill and plunder.

Though these wilds may be called pathless, still there were, here and there, narrow trails which the moccasined foot of the savage had trodden for uncounted centuries. They led, in a narrow track, scarcely two feet in breadth, through dense thickets, over craggy hills, and along the banks of placid streams or foaming torrents. It was generally necessary

to camp at night wherever darkness might overtake them. With their axes a rude cabin was easily constructed, roofed with bark, which afforded a comfortable shelter from wind and rain. The forest presented an ample supply of game. Delicious brook trout were easily taken from the streams. Exercise and fresh air gave appetite. With a roaring fire crackling before the camp, illumining the forest far and wide, the adventurers cooked their supper and ate it with a relish such as the pampered guests in lordly banqueting halls have seldom experienced. Their sleep was probably more sweet than was ever found on beds of down. Occasionally they would find shelter for the night in the wigwam of the friendly Indian."

In amusing contrast to this rose-colored view of life in the woods, are the terse and evidently feeling words, from the pen of Washington himself, recorded in his journal under date of March 15, 1748: "Worked hard till night and then returned. After supper we were lighted into a room, and I, being not so good a woodman as the rest, stripped myself very orderly and went into the bed, as they call it, when, to my surprise, I found it to be nothing but a little straw matted together, without sheet or anything else, but only one threadbare blanket, with double its weight of vermin. glad to get up and put on my clothes and lie as my companions did.

I was

Had

we not been very tired, I am sure we should not have slept much that night. I made a promise to sleep no more in a bed, choosing rather to sleep in the open air before a fire." Again, after being much longer away from home, Washington says in a letter to a friend: "Yours gave me the more pleasure as I received it among barbarians and an uncouth set of people. Since you received my letter of October last, I have not slept above three or four nights in a bed. But after walking a good deal all the day, I have lain down before the fire on a little hay, straw, fodder, or bear skin, whichever was to be had, with man, wife, and children, like dogs and cats, and happy is he who gets nearest the fire. I have never had my clothes off, but have lain and slept in them, except the few nights I have been in Fredericksburg."

With these and similar experiences, Washington and his companion, with their little party, consisting of an Indian guide and a few white attendants, continued through the weary weeks and months occupied in the fulfillment of their mission. This work was well and thoroughly done; the surveys made were afterwards proved to be careful and accurate. The party finally returned to civilization on the 12th day of April, 1749, more than a year after they set out. The report made to Lord Fairfax proved a source of immediate profit to Washington, who, though but a little more than seventeen years of age, was soon after made one of the official surveyors of the colony of Virginia. His late employer soon removed to a point in the newly surveyed territory, beyond the Blue Ridge, where he set aside ten thousand acres of land, to constitute his home estate, and projected a grand manor and house, after the English style. The proposed site of this dwelling, which, though Abbott describes it in glowing terms, was never built, is about twelve miles from the present village of Winchester.

Washington pursued his labors with the additional sanction given by his office, which entitled his surveys to become a matter of official record. As will be readily understood, the demand for such services in a new country was great, and, as the number of competent men was small, his labors commanded a correspondingly large remuneration. So for three years he continued, patiently working; his ability and industry commanding respect and gaining a daily wider recognition. He was SO accurate in all his processes that no considerable error was ever charged against him, and a title, finding its basis in one of his surveys, was rarely disputed. The minute acquaintance with the soil, timber, and other natural advantages of the region, thus obtained, proved of great practical value to him in after years, when his increased wealth needed investment; much of the finest land which he surveyed passed into his hands, and was later owned by members of the Washington family. He held his office of colonial surveyor for three years, when he resigned it to accept more important trusts.

WHIL

CHAPTER III.

THE CAUSES OF THE FRENCH WAR.

THILE it is the intention to restrict this work, so far as possible, to the simple record of Washington's life, it is impossible that such a biography should be adequately written or fairly understood, unless collateral matters are to a degree explained. Washington had,

at the age of nineteen years, reached the time when it was fated that he should put aside his own interests, turn his back upon home and friends and, in the service of the colony and the crown, take his first hard objectlessons in diplomacy and war. That the circumstances may be understood, and just conclusions attained, it is necessary to give a cursory view of the circumstances that led to the complications of the time, and to the ensuing war between France and England, for supremacy in America.

The fundamental differences arose thus: John Cabot, in 1497, crossed the Atlantic, and discovered the coast of Labrador. This result was enough to satisfy his immediate ambition, and he went back to England, leaving it for his son, Sebastian, who had been his companion, to return, during the ensuing year, and pursue the exploration. Sebastian sailed the same. course, and, reaching Labrador, turned southward and skirted the continent, keeping the coast always in sight, as far as the latitude of Hatteras, when, provisions falling short, he, in turn, sailed back to England. By virtue of this cruise, England claimed the entire unknown breadth of the North American continent, between the parallels of latitude bounding Cabot's coastwise exploration. Many colonial and personal grants of territory were made upon this basis-that of Virginia, for example, being defined north and south by its coast line, and east and west limited only by the extent of the land. As an instance of combined ignorance and prodigality, it is also interesting to note that King Charles I., in the fifth year of his reign, granted to "his loyal servant, Sir Charles Heath," all that part of North America bounded by the thirty-first and thirty-sixth degrees of north lati