Fairfax procured his appointment as public surveyor, and he spent the next two or three years mostly in the survey of Virginia lands. Lord Fairfax took up his residence on the Shenandoah, where Washington often tarried with him for a time on his surveying expeditions, and was largely profited by his great knowledge and extended acquaintance with the world.

COMING COMPLICATIONS.

The growing colonies were exciting ambitious schemes in the minds of peoples and kings. The great west was full of alluring prospects. Empires of land stretched away toward the setting sun. Something was known of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and the immense territories they drained. Subjects of the French king had seen them and taken possession of them and all their tributaries and lands on them, in the name of their king. The English claimed that through the "Six Nations" they had acquired a right to all this territory. The people of both nations were full of colonization schemes. Virginia and Pennsylvania were interested and excited. It was not far to the head waters of the Ohio's tributaries. Their Indian traders were already trafficking with the Ohio tribes. Settlers were making their way through the passes of the mountains and great interest was felt to push the settlements forward.

Among the many enterprising men who were interested in these schemes of wealth and dominion was Lawrence Washington. He desired that Virginia should join with Pennsylvania and make large settlements on the Ohio under the liberal religious policy of Pennsylvania. He said: "It has ever been my opinion, and I hope it ever will be, that restraints on conscience are cruel in regard to those on whom they are imposed, and injurious to the country imposing them." Then he refers to the liberty of conscience enjoyed in Pennsylvania, and the restraint put upon conscience in Virginia by its one English church, and points to the much more rapid growth of Pennsylvania. He would have this liberal policy applied to the western settlements. His enlightened views on this subject were no doubt imparted to his younger brother and helped form his

mind for the noble opinions and character which he afterward carried into his great career.

On the north, the French were equally active in pushing forward settlements, forts and possession. Both French and English were seeking alliance with the Indians, and the already disturbed borders indicated a coming clash of arms. In both nations, especially in the colonies, preparations were beginning. In Virginia the war spirit was aroused; the province was divided into military districts, each district having an adjutant-general with the rank of major, and pay of one hundred and fifty pounds a year. Lawrence Washington sought for his brother George an appointment to one of these offices. This indicates the maturity of mind he had already reached to have gained such confidence. The appointment was made and preparations were begun for a military campaign into the western wilds. George put himself under the military drill of the best instructors he could get, and Mount Vernon became the scene of military preparations and discipline.

LAWRENCE WASHINGTON'S SICKNESS.

But these preparations were stayed by the ill health of Lawrence Washington. His constitution had never been the firmest, and now he was threatened with dangerous pulmonary symptoms. By the advice of physicians, it was determined that he should spend the next winter in the West Indies. It was not thought safe for him to go alone, nor did he feel like going without his favorite brother George with him, whose strength and wisdom he had already begun to lean upon. So the preparations for a military campaign were changed to preparations for the journey to the West Indies. The young military leader was changed to a fraternal nurse. On the twenty-eighth of September, 1751, Lawrence and George started on their tour in search of health for the invalid. George kept a journal with his usual exactness. They reached the West Indies on the third of November. Here were new things in the style of life-the people and natural productions-which interested George at once; but they had been there but two weeks when he was

taken down with the small-pox, and had himself to be nursed by others. Good treatment and nursing carried him through with only slight marks left upon his face.

Lawrence's health not improving, in December George returned to Virginia for Lawrence's wife; but as she could not go immediately, he returned to his home in the early Spring. But nothing could stay the progress of his consuming disease, and on the twenty-sixth of July, 1752, he died, at the age of thirty-four. Now George, at a little past twenty years of age, had lost his father and his brother, who had been father and brother in one. Lawrence left by will his estate to his wife and daughter, and in case the daughter died without issue, to George at the decease of the wife. George was made one of the executors. The estate did at last come to George, and is now known as the sacred resting place of "The Father of his Country."

A PERILOUS MISSION.

The difficulties about the western territories increased. The French on the north kept pressing forward their forts, settlements and claims. They sent commissioners among the Indian tribes to secure their coöperation. They made bold their claim to the whole Mississippi valley, even to the head waters of all the tributaries of the Ohio. The English from Pennsylvania and Virginia pressed their claims and sent envoys, traders and settlers among the Indians, and quickened their preparations to occupy the coveted territories.

It was needful to know the minds of the Indians, the purposes of the French, the condition of their forts and settlements, and what was needful to check their encroachments. This knowledge could be got only by a competent ambassador to the French commander on Lake Erie.

Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, looked about him for a man equal to this delicate and dangerous errand. He must meet and treat with Indians, friendly and unfriendly; transact business with white men who, while professing friendliness would plot his destruction and the defeat of his mission; traverse a dense forest of six hundred miles, in which were high

mountains, large rivers, morasses, dangerous animals, and more dangerous savages who must be used as guides and for supplies. It needed great courage, sagacity, skill, tact, strength, health and self-sacrifice. Who was equal to such a mission? George Washington, a youth of twenty-one years, was suggested as the man with the requisite combination of qualities. After due consideration he was selected and invited to undertake the perilous mission. The ostensible object was to bear a message of the governor of Virginia, in the name of the king of England, to the commandant of the fort on French creek, fifteen miles south of Lake Erie, and to take back his answer. The real object was to reconnoitre the whole country and learn the condition, purposes and strategy of the enemy with whom they were likely soon to come into close conflict.

Washington undertook the mission, and set out from Williamsburg October 30, 1753. He left Wills' creek, Cumberland river, November 15, with Mr. Gist, an intrepid pioneer well known among the Indians; John Davidson, an Indian interpreter; Jacob Van Braam, a French interpreter, and four frontiersmen, two of whom were Indian traders.

After all sorts of difficulties with Indians, white deserters, French duplicity, rain, snow and mud, he reached the French fort December 11.

After much ceremony and parley, he got his reply and started on his return. Winter had set in. The streams and swamps were full. The French settlers, huntsmen, Indians and stragglers, were all made acquainted with the mission. Everywhere there was plotting to hinder, bewilder and lead astray the party. It had grown smaller till it was reduced to Washington, Mr. Gist and an Indian guide. The horses had been left and the luggage reduced to absolute necessities. Their direct course was through an unbroken wilderness of which they knew nothing. The conduct of the guide became so peculiar that their suspicions were awakened. He wanted to carry Washington's gun; led them as they believed the wrong way; became churlish; pretended that there were inimical Indians in the woods. length, when some fifteen paces ahead, he turned suddenly,

At

leveled his gun at Washington and fired. He missed his mark, ran on hastily a few rods behind a large tree and began to reload his gun. Finding that neither of them was hurt, they went to him and when his gun was reloaded took it from him. Mr. Gist wanted to dispatch the Indian at once; but Washington's scruples were too great. Then Mr. Gist said: "We must get rid of him;" so pretending still to have confidence in him they sent him to his cabin, which he said was not far away, promising to meet him there in the morning. When he was well out of sight they started and traveled all night. By the next night they reached the Alleghany river. It was frozen only along the shore. Great quantities of broken ice were floating in the stream. There was no way to get across but to make a raft; and only one poor hatchet for a tool. It was one whole day before they got a raft they dared venture upon. When in the middle of the stream poling it amid the ice floes as they could, a block of ice struck the pole with such force as to knock Washington from the raft into the deep stream. He saved himself by catching hold of a raft log. They had to let their raft go and get to an island by the help of the float wood, which now was near them. Here they spent the night and nearly perished with cold. But the cold which came near freezing them to death, made a bridge of the floating ice, so that they got off in the morning, and before night reached the comfortable quarters of an Indian trader. On the sixteenth of January they returned to Williamsburg.

Washington's journal of this mission was published and spread widely through the colonies and in England. It awakened England to the danger before it, and it fixed the eyes of all on young Washington as a remarkable youth, of prudence, sagacity and resolution far above his years. His admirable tact in treating with fickle savages and crafty white men; his soldierly eye to the true condition of the country, its exposures and defences, and his fortitude and faithfulness, all won for him the confidence and admiration of his countrymen. From this time he is a commanding figure in the colonies; the foundation of his great name and work is laid.