merit; and these quotations, again, are followed by "Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation." The rules are a hundred and ten in number, and appear to have been either copied entire out of one book, or collected out of several. We may quote two or three as specimens. Rule 2. "In the presence of others, sing not to yourself with a humming noise, nor drum with your fingers or feet." Rule 12. "Let your discourse with men of business be short and comprehensive." Rule 29. "Utter not base and frivolous things amongst grave and learned men; nor very difficult questions or subjects amongst the ignorant; nor things hard to be believed." Rule 40. "Think before you speak; pronounce not imperfectly, nor bring out your words too hastily, but orderly and distinctly." Rule 57. "Labour to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial

fire called conscience."

The methodical habits which we see so clearly manifested in these juvenile copybooks, were Washington's characteristics through life.

Grammar, or the study of languages, was no part of Washington's education when a boy. His early letters are sometimes faulty in point of grammar and expression, and it was only by practice in writing and conversation that he acquired the accurate and distinct style which he afterwards wrote. When considerably advanced in life, he made an attempt to learn French, but appears to have succeeded but poorly.

When Washington was fourteen years of age, a proposal was made with his own consent, which, if carried into effect, would have opened up for him a very different career from that which he was destined to follow. Observing his liking for adventure and active exercise, his brother Lawrence exerted his interest to procure for him a midshipman's warrant in the British navy. The warrant was procured, and the boy was pleased with a prospect which was at that time as promising as one in his circumstances could desire; but as nothing could overcome Mrs Washington's reluctance to let her son go to sea, the project was at length abandoned: George Washington remained at school, and some other boy obtained the midshipman's berth.

After leaving school, at the age of sixteen, Washington resided some time with his brother Lawrence on his estate of Mount Vernon; so called in honour of Admiral Vernon, who was a friend of Lawrence Washington, and under whose command George was to have served. Lawrence Washington had married Miss Fairfax, the daughter of his near neighbour William Fairfax, a person of wealth and political station in the colony, and a distant relative of Lord Fairfax-a nobleman of literary tastes and somewhat eccentric habits, who had left England and come to reside in Virginia, where he was the proprietor of a vast tract of country lying between the Potomac and Rapahannoc

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rivers, and stretching across the Alleghany mountains. At the time of George Washington's residence with his brother at Mount Vernon, Lord Fairfax was on a visit at the house of William Fairfax, the father-in-law of Lawrence; and between the two families a constant intercourse was kept up. As young Washington was continually employed in his favourite pursuit of land-surveying, putting his art in practice on his brother's estate, it occurred to Lord Fairfax to engage him in surveying his own vast property. Various circumstances were rendering such a survey absolutely Settlers were squatting down on the most fertile spots on the extremity of his lordship's lands, without leave being asked or given; and to put a stop to such proceedings, it was essential that the boundaries of the lands should be defined, and the remoter districts accurately divided into lots. Our young surveyor was intrusted with this very responsible office; and accordingly, in the month of March 1748, he set out on his surveying expedition to the valleys of the Alleghanies, accompanied by George Fairfax, the son of William Fairfax. The tour lasted two months, and, from the entries in Washington's journal, the labour appears to have been pretty arduous. On the 15th of March he writes-" Worked hard till night, and then returned. After supper, we were lighted into a room, and I not being so good a woodsman as the rest, stripped myself very orderly, and went into the bed, as they called 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, covered with vermin. I was glad to get up and put on my clothes, and lie as my companions did."

For three years Washington pursued the profession of landsurveyor in the neighbourhood of Mount Vernon, making occasional journeys as far as the Alleghanies. As he had received a commission as public surveyor, which gave his surveys authority, and as there were very few of the profession at that time in Virginia, his practice was extensive and lucrative. In writing to a friend, describing the hardships and exposures which he had to undergo in his surveying tours to the west, he says, "Nothing could make it pass off tolerably but a good reward. A doubloon is my constant gain every day that the weather will permit of my going out, and sometimes six pistoles." In another letter written during the same period to a friend, whom he addresses as "dear Robin," and who appears to have been his confidant, he says, "My place of residence at present is at his lordship's (Lord Fairfax's), where I might, were my heart disengaged, pass my time very pleasantly, as there is a very agreeable young lady in the same house, Colonel George Fairfax's wife's sister. But that only adds fuel to the fire, as being often and unavoidably in company with her revives my former passion for your Lowland beauty; whereas, were I to live more retired from young women, I might in some measure alleviate my sorrow by burying that chaste and trouble

some passion in oblivion." Several other letters of the same period are written in the same desponding tone; but the name of this "troublesome" Lowland beauty, who was Washington's first love, has unfortunately perished.

About the year 1751, the French and the Indians were making themselves very disagreeable neighbours to the British colonists in Virginia; the French by their encroachments on the frontier, and the Indians by the depredations which they committed. To defend themselves against these, as well as to be prepared for the war which seemed likely at no distant period to break out between France and Great Britain, it was resolved to organise the colonial militia, divide the province into districts, and appoint an adjutant-general, with the military rank of major, to superintend each district. Washington, who was now in his twentieth year, was appointed one of these officers, probably by the interest of his friends, the Fairfaxes. The office, besides bringing him in a hundred and fifty pounds a-year, afforded him opportunities of becoming practically acquainted with military affairs. He entered with ardour into its duties, taking lessons from the ablest military men he could meet in with, submitting himself to the drill, and reading numerous books on the military art.

As

Shortly after Washington's appointment to the rank of major in the militia, his brother Lawrence, whose health had been long declining, was advised to make a voyage to Barbadoes, and reside a few months there for the benefit of the climate; and as it was necessary that he should not go unattended, George accompanied him. While in Barbadoes, Washington was attacked by small-pox, but recovered after a short illness. his brother was not deriving any benefit from the climate, he resolved to go to Bermuda in the spring, and in the meantime Washington was to return to Virginia. From Bermuda, Lawrence was to write to him to rejoin him along with his wife. This arrangement, however, was never carried into effect; for though, in the spring, Lawrence did proceed to Bermuda, he found himself so much worse, that he saw it to be necessary to return to Virginia; and on the 26th of July 1752 he died at Mount Vernon, leaving a wife and an infant daughter. By his will, the property of Mount Vernon was bequeathed to his daughter; but in case of her death without issue, it was to devolve on Washington, with the reservation of a life-interest in favour of his wife. Washington was also appointed one of the executors.

Immediately on his return from Barbadoes, Major Washington had resumed his military duties with great zeal and perseverance; and when, on the appointment of Mr Dinwiddie as governor of Virginia, the whole colony was mapped out into four grand military divisions, so high was Major Washington's character, that the northern division was allotted to him. His duties were to "visit the several counties, in order to train and instruct the

militia officers, review the companies on parade, inspect the arms and accoutrements, and establish a uniform system of manoeuvres and discipline."

WAR WITH THE FRENCH ON THE FRONTIER.

Every day fresh accounts were received of the encroachments which the French were making on the British territory beyond the Alleghanies. These accounts had reached the government at home, and the British cabinet had sent out instructions to Governor Dinwiddie to build two forts on the Ohio, for the purpose of driving off the intruders, and asserting the British claim to the disputed territory. As a preliminary step, Governor Dinwiddie resolved to send a commissioner, in the name of his Britannic majesty, to confer with the commander of the intruding French troops, and demand his reason for invading the British territory, and also with a view to collect accurate information respecting the numbers and force of the invaders, their intended movements, and the extent to which they had gained the confidence and alliance of the Indians. Major Washington was selected as a person well qualified for this important mission, although yet only in his twenty-second year. Accompanied by seven others, two of whom were to act as his interpreters, one with the French, the other with the Indians, he performed a difficult and dangerous journey of 560 miles, in the depth of winter, through a region of forest, swamp, and wilderness, which had not yet been penetrated by civilisation; and after an absence of nearly three months, returned to Williamsburg, the seat of the Virginia government, having fully accomplished the main objects of his expedition. The three principal objects which Governor Dinwiddie contemplated by the mission were, the ascertaining of a suitable site for a British fort, a conference with the Indian tribes, with a view to secure their assistance against the French, and a visit to the French fort itself. Major Washington attended to them

all.

Proceeding to the French fort, he had several interviews with the commandant; but as nothing satisfactory resulted from these conferences, he took his departure, after having stayed long enough to obtain all the intelligence he wished to carry back to Governor Dinwiddie. Immediately on his return to Williamsburg, his journal of the expedition was published, and being regarded as an important official document, as affairs then stood between France and Great Britain, it was copied into almost all the newspapers both in the colony and in the mother country.

Governor Dinwiddie commenced his military preparations with great alacrity. He summoned an early meeting of the legislature, to adopt such proceedings as might appear proper in the

of the other provinces, to rouse their flagging zeal. The colonists, however, showed no signs of sympathy with the bustling activity of the governor. They were in no hurry, they said, to precipitate themselves into a war with which they had no concern. What business had the governor of Virginia with the encroachments of the French on the Ohio? Was it even certain that they were encroaching on the king's lands? What claim had the king of Great Britain to these lands, any more than the king of France? Or, if the lands did belong to the king of Great Britain, why did he not send out his own soldiers to beat back the French, instead of leaving it to be done by the colonists, to whom it did not matter a pin's point whether the French kept possession of the lands or not? Such murmurs gave the governor great vexation. It is true that, after a long discussion, the legislature of Virginia voted ten thousand pounds for the defence of the colony; but the manner in which the vote was made was very displeasing to the loyal governor. "I am sorry," he wrote to the Earl of Holdernesse, to find the colonists very much in a republican

way of thinking."

A respectable militia force was nevertheless raised. An Englishman, Colonel Fry, was appointed to the first command, and Washington was named his second, with the rank of lieutenantcolonel. While the governor and Colonel Fry were engaged in trying to recruit the army by appeals to the colonists, and by holding out bounties in land to such as would enlist, Colonel Washington, with three small companies, was sent to occupy an outpost in the very line in which the French were advancing. It was destined that the first battle in the war should be fought by him. Hearing that the French had succeeded in obtaining possession of the British fort at the Ohio fork, and that a party was approaching in the direction of his post, he deemed it advisable to advance himself into the wilderness; and on the 27th of May 1754, meeting a party of fifty French soldiers under the command of M. de Junonville, an action ensued, in which Junonville and ten of his men were killed, and twenty taken prisoners. Only one of Washington's men was killed, and two or three wounded. As war had not yet been formally declared, the importance of this skirmish was greatly magnified both in France and Great Britain, and Washington did not escape blame. In France, the death of Junonville was pronounced to be nothing else than a murder in cold blood; and it was even made the subject of a heroic poem, in which Washington did not appear to advantage. Nor does the transaction appear to have been regarded with more favour in England, if we may believe the following passage in Horace Walpole's "Memoirs of George the Second," written not long after the event. "In the express which Major Washington despatched on his preceding little victory," says Walpole, "he concluded with these words, 'I heard the bullets whistle, and believe me, there is something charming in the sound.' On hear