tisfied, but
highly gratified with what you have done for my comfort."

She was accustomed to say, after the Revolution, "I heard the first
cannon at the opening, and the last at the closing, of all the campaigns
of the Revolutionary war."

She survived her husband by two years. As death drew near, with mind
clear and heart staid on God, she awaited the final summons with
calmness and sweet resignation. She called her grandchildren to her
bedside, "discoursed to them of their respective duties, spoke of the
happy influence of religion, and then triumphantly resigned her spirit
into the hands of her Saviour," and expired.

Mount Vernon is now in a good state of preservation. A national
association of women have charge of the place, that it may be kept in
repair, and the relics--furniture, pictures, account books, library,
etc.--be preserved for coming generations to see.

XVI.

COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.

During the fifteen years of Washington's peaceful abode at Mount Vernon,
public affairs were hastening to a crisis. The "Seven Years' War,"
beginning with Washington's attack upon De Jumonville, and ending with
the surrender of Montreal and all Canada, and the signing of the treaty
of peace at Fontainbleau, in 1763, had closed; but greater things
awaited the colonists in the future.

Scarcely had the people settled down in the enjoyment of peace when an
insurrection broke out among the Indian tribes, including the Delawares,
Shawnees, and other tribes on the Ohio, with whom Washington had
mingled. It was called "Pontiac's War," because Pontiac, a famous Indian
chief, was its master-spirit. He induced the tribes to take up the
hatchet against the English.

An attack was made upon all the English posts, from Detroit to Fort Pitt
(late Duquesne). "Several of the small stockaded forts, the places of
refuge of woodland neighbors, were surprised and sacked with remorseless
butchery. The frontiers of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia were
laid waste; traders in the wilderness were plundered and slain; hamlets
and farm-houses were wrapped in flames, and their inhabitants
massacred."

Washington was not engaged in this Indian war, which was short in
duration. At the time he was pushing his project of draining the Dismal
Swamp.

Other things, however, of a public nature enlisted his attention, as the
following interview with Mr. George Mason will show:

"It appears that the British Government propose to tax the