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GREAT MEN'S BODIES
always attracted to the best men, and to be cherished by them. Fairfax, his employer, an Oxford scholar, already aged, became his fast friend. He read little, but with close attention. Whatever he took in hand he applied himself to with care; and his papers which have been preserved show how he almost imperceptibly gained the power of writing correctly; always expressing himself with clearness and directness, often with felicity of language and grace. When the frontiers on the West became disturbed, he at nineteen was commissioned an Adjutant-General, with the rank of Major. At twenty-one he went as the envoy of Virginia to the council of Indian chiefs on the Ohio, and to the French officers near Lake Erie."—Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. III.
From nineteen to twenty-six in the French and Indian War, rising to the rank of Colonel; the only aide of General Braddock who escaped from the disastrous ambuscade at Fort Duquesne; in constant danger in treacherous Indian warfare; always in the thickest of the fight; horses shot under him; his clothing riddled, Indian braves doing their utmost to kill him; till his escape at times seemed miraculous; then a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses till forty-three; and Patrick Henry says that for solid information and sound judgment he was easily the peer of any man in all that distinguished body; a member of the Continental Congress; then made commander-in-chief of the American forces; "Compelled by superior forces at times to retreat, and reduced to the most desperate straits by disaffection, lack of men and supplies, and even cabals against his authority; approached by the enemy with bribes; yet by his mildness, calm courage, prudence, firmness, and perseverance he brought the war, with the aid of powerful allies, to a successful termination; and the independence of the thirteen colonies achieved, he retired from the army to Mount Vernon, which he had, during the eight years of war, but once visited. He refused to accept pay, but kept a minute account of his personal expenses, which were reimbursed by Congress; in 1784 planned the James River and Potomac canals; gave the shares voted him by the State to endow Washington College, at Lexington, Virginia, and for a University; proposed conventions for commercial purposes, which led to the Convention of 1787, of which he was a member, which formed the present Fedderal Constitution, considered by him as the only alternative to anarchy and civil war; elected first President of the United States,
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