ase to be of romantic and
thrilling interest.

The story of the settlement and dispersal of other nationalities in
America--the Swedes in Delaware, the Dutch in New York, the Spanish
and French in Florida and along the banks of the Mississippi and Ohio
Rivers--all this is summed up in what is known as "colonial history."

In 1763, at the close of the French and Indian wars, England had come
into possession of practically all the territory east of the
Mississippi--that territory which was ceded in 1783 as the original
territory of the United States.

You will sometimes hear it said that thirteen is an unlucky number.
Indeed you may have known people so superstitious that they refuse to
sit down at a table when the number is thirteen. Again you may know it
to be a fact that some hotels do not have a room numbered thirteen,
and that many steamboats likewise follow the same custom in state-room
arrangement. Strange superstition for Americans! It took thirteen
states to make our Union; we have made thirteen additions to our
territory; when George Washington was inaugurated as president, a
salute of thirteen guns was fired; and, finally, the foundation of the
flag of our country bears thirteen stripes.

The American Revolution

The story of the American Revolution (1775-1783)--Declaration of
Independence (1776), the adoption of the Articles of Confederation
(1781), and, finally, the making and adoption of the Constitution of
the United States in 1789--all is summed up in a period of fourteen
years, and may be told and written in the life of George Washington,
who was indeed the "Father of His Country."

The cause of the American Revolution was England's oppression of her
American colonists; and the injustice of taxation without
representation, with other injustices, finally brought about
rebellion. The war began in Massachusetts with the battles of
Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775, and ended at Yorktown, Va.,
October 19, 1781. The treaty of peace was {326} signed at Paris,
France, September 3, 1783, and November 25 of that year, known in
history as "Evacuation Day," the British took their departure down the
bay of New York harbor and America was free.

Now do we find ourselves at the fireside of American patriotism. Here
is Washington. He is a Virginian, and the American people know him at
this time as Colonel Washington. It is the 13th day of June, 1775, and
the second Continental Congress is in session at Ph