CHAPTER VIII.

Esteem of his brothers for Washington-Lawrence always his friend and benefactorFortunes of the family-George at Mount Vernon-Receives a midshipman's warrant Gives way to his mother's wishes and stays at home-Learns military tactics and fencing-Contents himself with learning to be a good surveyor-Extreme accuracy of his papers-Old desk-Curious memorandum.

THERE is no question that Washington-though far from being considered a prodigy-early attracted an unusual amount of notice in his family and neighborhood. This was owing as much to his character as to his talents, which were not of the brilliant order. His half-brother Lawrence, fourteen years older than himself, had a peculiar affection for him. Lawrence had been sent, as was the fashion of the times, to seek in England the education which this country did not then afford, and he had afterwards been induced to join the armament sent by Great Britain, in 1740, to the West Indies, against the French and Spanish who had committed some aggressions. Here he distinguished himself and won the confidence and respect of the British commanders, Admiral Vernon and General Wentworth. He intended to go to England, and to remain and seek

promotion in the army, in which he already held a captain's commission; but having fallen in love with a neighbor, Miss Anne Fairfax, daughter of William Fairfax, a near relation to the eccentric lord of that name, he staid at home to be married, and soon after settled down on the farm in Fairfax County allotted to him by his father, which he afterward named Mount Vernon, in honor of the gallant admiral. This marriage and removal were nearly contemporary with the sudden death of the father, which took place on the 12th of April, 1745, when George, who was absent from home at the time, was thirteen years of age.

The death of Mr. Augustin Washington had produced a great change in the family affairs. The large landed and other property which he had managed, was now divided among his children. George's share was the house and lands on the Rappahannock, but the entire property of the children under age was left under the care and management of the widow, in whose judg ment and capacity her husband seems to have had an unbounded confidence, which speaks well for them both. If it requires an uncommonly wise woman to manage important affairs well, it is at least equally rare to find a man who is liberal enough to believe his wife capable of doing so. Mrs. Washington justified her husband's opinion of her; brought up her children and took care of their property, like a firm, high-minded, sensible woman, as she was, and had the great reward of seeing her affairs prosperous, and her children all respectable

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and happy, while one of them was destined, even in her own day and under her very eyes, to transcend the ordinary sons of men in character, as much as he was favored by Providence with an unequalled field for the development and display of his peculiar talents.

Augustin, the other surviving son of the first marriage, had married another neighbor, Miss Anne Aylett, daughter of William Aylett of Westmoreland County, and had settled in the old homestead at Bridge's Creek. Thither was George sent after the father's death, to go to school. There was no more sending to England for education now, but strict economy, and a desire to fit George to earn for himself the competency, which the divided estate could not supply to so extended a family. His mother seems to have limited her ambition for her eldest boy, to making him an intelligent, honest and thriving planter, able to survey his own. land and other people's, to keep accounts with exactness, and to be a proficient in country business, in which was of course included the practice of hunting and fishing. Plantation life included her ideas of happiness, usefulness and respectability, as we may gather from her hearty exclamation, long after, when somebody was telling her of the great things her son was doing—

"Oh dear! I do wish George would stay at home and take care of his plantation!"

While George was living with his brother Augustin at Bridge's Creek, Lawrence, who was very fond of him, had him often at Mount Vernon, where was at all times

to be found the best society in the country, and particularly that of the Fairfax family, who were well-bred though somewhat eccentric people. William Fairfax, the father-in-law of Lawrence and the owner of a fine seat on the Potomac, a few miles below Mount Vernon, was a cousin of Thomas, Lord Fairfax, of Greenway Court, the proprietor, by grant from the crown, of the whole immense tract of land between the Potomac and

Rappahannock rivers. The acquaintance with these men of great wealth and distinction, then made at Mount Vernon, proved of immense and controlling importance to George Washington. William Fairfax who had served in both the East and West Indies, and had also held the position of governor of New Providence ; and Lord Fairfax, an Oxford scholar who had run a fashionable course in London, were both men of mark and discernment, as well as of friendly and kind feelings. It was probably through these influential friends, that Lawrence procured for his brother George a midshipman's warrant, with which, in his fourteenth year, he was to have joined a ship-of-war, but for the unwillingness of his mother to part with her eldest-born so early, and for so dangerous a profession. Some of her friends blamed her for this demur, and called it weakness. One writes, "I am afraid Mrs. Washington will not keep to her first resolution. She seems to dislike George's going to sea, and says several persons have told her it was a bad scheme. She offers several trifling objections, such as fond, unthinking mothers

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habitually suggest, and I find that one word against his going has more weight with her than ten for it."

"Fond, unthinking mothers!" We are rather glad that Mrs. Washington ever seemed such a mother. She has so stern a reputation, that we like to ascribe to her a little amiable weakness. The young man himself seems to have shown his good sense and good feeling in the matter; for, although every preparation had been made, and his clothes had actually been sent on board, we hear nothing of his repining at the decision of his mother. Mr. Fairfax writes of him at the time to Lawrence," George has been with us, and says he will be steady, and thankfully follow your advice as his best friend."

So a project which must have been very fascinating to a young, warm imagination, was quietly abandoned, and the youth, in the dutiful spirit which ever characterized him, went back to school, to prepare himself for entering upon the comparatively humble business of a surveyor, in connection with the ordinary duties and occupations of a planter's life, and that on a very moderate scale.

Had he, even then, an inward consciousness of irresistible ability and force of character, that made the particular mode of his entrance upon life a matter of comparative indifference to him? Who can say ?

One of the incidental advantages of Washington's visits at Mount Vernon, was the training in military exercises which he there received, from an old adjutant