hful
surveyor, was a frequent inmate; and here he indulged his taste for
hunting, and improved himself by reading and conversing with Lord
Fairfax.

FOOTNOTES:

[453:A] Sparks' Writings of Washington, ii. 478; Irving's Washington, i.
59.

[453:B] At Bath, in Virginia.

[454:A] Sparks' Writings of Washington, ii. 481.

[454:B] Foote's Sketches, 219.

[456:A] Chalmers' Hist. of Revolt of Amer. Colonies, ii. 199.

[458:A] Bishop Meade's Old Churches, etc.

CHAPTER LX.

French Encroachments--Mission of Washington--Virginia
resists the French--First Engagement--Death of Jumonville--
Lieutenant-Colonel Washington retreats--Surrenders at Fort
Necessity.

AT the age of nineteen, in 1751, Washington was appointed one of the
adjutants-general of Virginia, with the rank of major. In the autumn of
that year he accompanied his brother Lawrence, then in declining health,
to Barbadoes, in the West Indies, who returned to Virginia, and after
lingering for awhile died at Mount Vernon, aged thirty-four.

In the same year also died the Rev. William Dawson, Commissary and
President of William and Mary College. Davies expresses veneration for
his memory.

After the arrival of Governor Dinwiddie, the colony was divided into
four military districts, and the northern one was allotted to Major
Washington. France was now undertaking to stretch a chain of posts from
Canada to Louisiana, in order to secure a control over the boundless and
magnificent regions west of the Alleghanies, which she claimed by a
vague title of La Salle's discovery. The French deposited, (1749,) under
ground, at the mouth of the Kenhawa and other places, leaden plates, on
which was inscribed the claim of Louis the Fifteenth to the whole
country watered by the Ohio and its tributaries. England claimed the
same territory upon a ground equally slender--the cession made by the
Iroquois at the treaty of Lancaster. A more tenable ground was, that
from the first discovery of Virginia, England had claimed the territory
to the north and northwest from ocean to ocean, and that the region in
question was the contiguous back country of her settlements. The title
of the native tribes actually inhabiting the country commanded no
consideration from the contending powers. The French troops had now
commenced establishing posts in the territory on the Ohio claimed by
Virginia. Dinwiddie having communicated information of these
encroachments t