If tradition is to be trusted, few sons ever had a more lovely and devoted mother, and no mother a more dutiful and affectionate son. Bereaved of her husband, who died after a short illness in 1743, when George was but eleven years of age, and with four younger children to be cared for, she discharged the responsibilities thus sadly devolved upon her with scrupulous fidelity and firmness. To her we owe the precepts and example that governed George's life. The excellent maxims, moral and religious, which she found in her favorite manual-" Sir Matthew Hale's Contemplations"were impressed on his memory and on his heart, as she read them aloud to her children; and that little volume, with the autograph inscription of Mary Washington, was among the cherished treasures of his library as long as he lived. To her, too, under God, we owe especially the restraining influence and authority, that held him back, at the last moment, as we shall see, from embarking on a line of life that would have cut him off from the great career that has rendered his name immortal.

Mary Washington

Well did Dr. Sparks, in his careful and excellent biography, speak of "the debt owed by mankind to the mother of Washington." A pleasing conjectural picture, not without some weight of testimony, has been adopted by Mr. Lossing in his "Mary and Martha," representing her at the age of twenty-three.* She delighted in saying simply that "George had always been a good son"; and her own life was fortunately prolonged until she had seen him more than fulfil every hope of her heart. On his way to his first inauguration as president of the United States Washington came to bid his mother a last farewell, just before her death.

That parting scene, however, was not at his birthplace. The primitive Virginia farm-house in which he was born had long ceased to be the family residence, and had gradually fallen into

ruin. The remains of a large kitchen-chimney were all that could be identified of it in 1878, by a party of which Secretary Evarts, General Sherman, and the late Mr. Charles C. Perkins, of Boston, were three, who visited the spot with a view to the erection of a memorial under the authority of congress. long after the birth that has rendered this spot forever memorable, Augustine Washington removed to an estate in Stafford county, on the east side of the Rappahannock, opposite Fredericksburg, and resided there with his family during the remaining years of his life. That was the scene of George's early childhood. There he first went to school, in an "old-field" schoolhouse, with Hobby, the sexton of the parish, for his first master. After his father's death, however, he was sent back to the old homestead at Pope's Creek, to live for a while with his elder half-brother, Augustine, to whom the Westmoreland estate had been left, and who, on his marriage, had taken it for his residence. There George had the advantage of at least a better school than Hobby's, kept by a Mr. Williams. But it taught him nothing except reading, writing, and arithmetic, with a little geometry and surveying. For this last study he evinced a marked preference. Many of his copy-books of that period have been preserved, and they show no inconsiderable proficiency in the surveyor's art, even before he finally left school, toward the close of his sixteenth year.

One of those manuscript books, however, is of a miscellaneous and peculiarly interesting character, containing carefully prepared forms for business papers; a few selections or, it may be, original compositions in rhyme; and a series of "Rules of Behavior in Company and Conversation," most of them translated from a French Book of Maximes," discovered by Mr. Conway, of which the last

and most noteworthy one, not

in the French series, and which he may have added himself, must never be omitted from the story of Washington's boyhood: "Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, Conscience." All these schoolboy manuscripts bear witness alike to his extreme care in cultivating a neat, clear,

and elegant handwriting, and his name is sometimes written. almost as if in contemplation of the great instruments and state papers to which it was destined to be the attesting signature.

Meantime he was training himself for vigorous manhood by all sorts of robust exercises and athletic sports. He played soldier, sometimes, with his school-mates, always asserting the authority of captain, and subjecting the little company to a rigid discipline. Running, leaping, and wrestling were among his favorite pastimes. He became a fearless rider, too, and no horse is said to have been too fiery for him. "Above all," as Irving well says, "his inherent probity, and the principles of justice on which he regulated his conduct, even at this early period of his life, were soon appreciated by his school-mates;

W

※

wire

he was referred to as an umpire in their disputes, and his decisions were never reversed." A crisis in Washington's life occurred before he left school. His eldest half-brother, Lawrence, had already been an officer in the English service, and was at the siege of Carthagena under Admiral Vernon, for whom he formed. a great regard, and whose name he afterward gave to his estate on the Potomac. Observing George's military propensities, and thinking that the English navy would afford him the most promising field for future distinction, Lawrence obtained a midshipman's warrant for him in 1746, when he was just fourteen years old, and George is said to have been on the point of embarking on this English naval service. The earnest remonstrance of his mother was interposed, and the project reluctantly abandoned. He thereupon resumed his studies, and did not leave school till the autumn before his sixteenth year. Soon afterward he went to reside with his brother Lawrence, who had married a Fairfax of Belvoir, and had established himself at Mount Vernon.

Washington's education was now finished, so far as schools and schoolmasters were concerned, and he never enjoyed or sought the advantages of a college. Indeed, only a month

after he was sixteen he entered on the active career of a surveyor of lands, in the employment of William Fairfax, the father of his brother's wife, and the manager of the great estate of his cousin, Lord Fairfax. In this work he voluntarily subjected himself to every variety of hardship and personal danger. Those Alleghany valleys and hills were then a wilderness, where difficult obstructions were to be overcome, severe exposures to be endured, and savage tribes to be conciliated or encountered. For three successive years he persevered undauntedly in this occupation, having obtained a commission from the president and master of William and Mary college as a public surveyor for Culpeper county, which entitled his surveys to a place in the county office, where they were held in high esteem for completeness and accuracy. During these three years he allowed himself but little relaxation, yet found time in the winter months for an occasional visit to his mother, and for aiding her in the management of her affairs.

And now, at nineteen years of age, he received an appointment as adjutant-general, with the rank of major, to inspect and exercise the militia in one of the districts into which Virginia was divided in view of the French encroachments and the Indian depredations with which the frontiers were menaced. Before he had fairly entered on this service, however, he was called to accompany his brother Lawrence to the West Indies, on a voyage for his brother's health, and was absent from home for more than four months, during which he had a severe attack of small-pox. His brother remained longer, and returned at last only to die, leaving George as one of his executors, and involving him in large responsibilities as well as in much personal affliction. Meantime his appointment as adjutant-general was renewed by Gov. Dinwiddie, and he was assigned to the charge of one of the grand military divisions of the colony. A wider field of service was thus opened to Washington, on which he entered with alacrity.

War between France and England was now rapidly approaching, involving a conflict for the possession of a large part of the American continent. French posts were already established on the banks of the Ohio, with a view of confining the English colonies within the Alleghany mountains. Gov. Dinwiddie, under instructions from the British ministry, resolved upon sending a commissioner to the officer commanding the French forces to in

quire by what authority he was invading the king's dominions, and to ascertain, if possible, his further designs. Washington was selected for this delicate and dangerous mission, after several others had declined to undertake it. He accepted it at once, and toward the end of November, 1753, he set out from Williamsburg, without any military escort, on a journey of nearly 600 miles a great part of it over "lofty and rugged mountains and through the heart of a wilderness." The perilous incidents of this expedition cannot be recounted here. His marvellous and providential escapes, at one time from the violence of the savages, at another from assassination by a treacherous guide, at a third from being drowned in crossing the Alleghany river on a raft, have been described in all the accounts of his early manhood, substantially from his own journal, published in London at the time. He reached Williamsburg on his return on 16 Jan., 1754, and delivered to Gov. Dinwiddie the reply of the French commander to his message of inquiry. No more signal test could have been afforded of Washington's various talents and characteristics, which this expedition served at once to display and to develop. "From that moment," says his biographer, Irving, "he was the rising hope of Virginia."

He was then but just finishing his twenty-first year, and immediately after his return he was appointed to the chief command of a little body of troops raised for meeting immediate exigencies; but the military establishment was increased as soon as the governor could convene the legislature of Virginia, and Washington was appointed lieutenant-colonel of a regiment, with Joshua Fry, an accomplished Oxford scholar, as his colonel. Upon Washington at once devolved the duty of going forward with such companies as were enlisted, and the sudden death of Col. Fry soon left him in full command of the expedition. The much-misrepresented skirmish with the French. troops, resulting in the death of Jumonville, was followed, on 3 July, 1754, by the battle of the Great Meadows, where Washington held his ground, in Fort Necessity, from eleven in the morning to eight at night, against a great superiority of numbers, until the French requested a parley. A capitulation ensued, in every way honorable to Washington as it was translated and read to him, but which proved, when printed, to contain terms in the French language which he never would have

4