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ANECDOTES OF EMINENT PERSONS. 
Ces es oh daamaameal : 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GEORGE 
WASHINGTON, LATE PRESIDENT OF 
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 
EORGE WASHINGTON, one of 
thofe few men who have been great 
without being criminal, was born on the 
zith ot Fedruary, 1732, in the Parifh of 
Wafbingion, Virginia. He was defcended 
from an ancient family in Chefhire, of 
which a branch had been eftablifhed in 
Virginia about the middle of the laf 
century. We are not acquainted with 
any remarkable circumftances of his edu- 
cation or his early youth; and we fhould 
not indeed expect any marks of that dif- 
orderly prematurenefs of talent, which is 
fo often fallacious, in a character whofe 
diftinguifhing praife was to be perfedtly 
regular and natural. His claffical inftruc- 
tion was probably {mall, fuch as the pri- 
vate tutor of a Virginian country gentleman 
could at that period have imparted ; and 
if his opportunities of information had 
_ been niore favourable, the time was too 
fhort to profit by them.* Before he was 
twenty he was appointed a major in the 
eolonial militia, and he had very early oc- 
cafion to difplay thofe political and mili- 
tary talents, of which the exertions on a 
greater theatre have fince made his name {fo 
famous throughout the world. 
The plentpotentiaries who framed the 
tréaty of Aix la Chapelle, by leaving the 
boundaries of the Britith and French ter- 
--mitories in North America unfixed +, had 



/ mittake. 
fown the feeds of a new war, at the mo- 
ment when they concluded a peace. —The 
dimits of Canada and Louitiana, negli- 
gently defcribed in vague language by the 
treaties of Utrecht and Aix ta Chapelle, 
becaufe the greater part of thefe vat coun- 
tries was then an impenetrable wildernefs, 
furnifhed a motive, or a pretext, for one 
of the moft fucce(sful but one of the mot 
bloody and waiteful wars in which Great 
| Britain had ever been engaged. 
In the difputes which arofe between 
the French and Englifh officers on this 

 * Several accounts of the life of Wath- 
“ington have ftated, that he ferved as a mid- 
“Shipman on board a British frigate. This is a 
His elder brother, who died young, 
feryed in that capacity in Vernon’s expedi- 
‘tion againf& Carthagena; whence the family 
feat was called Mount Vernon. Wafhington 
himfelf never left. the United States, except 
in one fhort voyage to a Weft India ifland, 
) when he was very young. 
_ t Giuvres poftnumes de Frederic If. tom. 
Bp. 47.—Mémoires de Duclos, vol. ii, &«, 
MONTHLY MAG. NO, 56, | 
fubje&, Major Wathincton was employed 
by the governor of Virginia, in a negotia- 
tion with the French governor of Fort d# 
Quefne (now Pithurgh) ; who threatened 
the Englifh frontiers with a body of French 
and their Indian allies. He fucceeded in 
averting the invafion; but hofilities be- 
coming inevitable, he was in the next year 
appointed lieutenant colonel of a regiment 
raifed by the colony for its own detence 3 
to the command of which he foon after fuc- 
ceeded.’ ‘The expedition of Braddock fol- 
lowed in the year 1755; of which the 
fatal iffue is too well known to require 
being defcribed by us. Colonel Wath- 
ington ferved in that expedition only as a 
volunteer; but fuch was the general con- 
fidence in-his talents, that he may be faid 
to have conducted the retreat. Several 
Britifh officers are {till alive who remember 
the calmnefs and intrepidity which he 
fhewed in that difficult fituation, and the 
voluntary obedience which was fo cheer- 
fully paid by the whole army to his faperior 
mind. After having acted a diltinguifhed) 
part im a fubfeguent and more fuccefsful 
expedition to the Onio, he was obliged by ill 
health, in the year1758, to refion his mili- 
tary fituation. The fixteen years which. 
rollowed of the lite of Wathington, fupply 
few marerials for the biographer. Having 
married Mrs. Cuftis, a Virginian lady. of 
amiable charagter and !refpeétable connec- 
tions, he fettled at his beautiful feat of 
Mount Vernon *, of which we Have hed 
fo many defcriptions; where,’ with the 
exception of fuch attendance as was re- 
quired by his duties as a magiftrate and 
a member of the affembly, his time was oc- 
cupied by his domettic enjoyments, and 
the cultivation of his eftate, in a manner 
well fuited tothe tranquillity of his pure 
and unambitious mind. At the end of 
this period he was called by the voice of 
his country from this ftate of calm and 
fecure though unoftentatious happinefs. 
The events of that deplorable 
which rent afiunder the Britifh empire, are 
yet perhaps too recent for free and im- 
partial difenffion. The connexton between 
Great Britain and America had long been 
fulFered to remain in that uncertain ftate 
which is not inconfiftent with mutual har- 
mony as long as each party repofes con- 
fidence in each other. ‘Phe fupreme aue 
thority of the mother country was re{pected 
without being definitely acknowledged in 
+ 
contelt 

* See the duc de Liancourt’s Travels, and 
thofe of Weld, Briffot, Chaftellux, &c. 
Y 

t 
bee 
