s of Fort Duquesne--where Pittsburgh now
stands, and the Titans of Industry wage the eternal war of Toil--marches
in with the advanced guard of his troops, and plants the British flag
over its smoking ruins.

That self-same year Wolfe, another young and brilliant soldier of
Britain, has scaled and triumphed on the Heights of Abraham--his flame
of valor quenched as it lit the blaze of victory; Canada surrenders; the
Seven Years' War is done; the French power in America is broken, and the
vast region west of the Alleghenies, from the lakes to the Ohio,
embracing its valley and tributary streams, is under the scepter of King
George. America has been made whole to the English-speaking race, to
become in time the greater Britain.

Thus, building wiser than he knew, Washington had taken no small part in
cherishing the seed of a nascent nation.

[Illustration: WASHINGTON AT MOUNT VERNON]

Mount Vernon welcomes back the soldier of twenty-seven, who has become a
name. Domestic felicity spreads its charms around him with the
"agreeable partner" whom he has taken to his bosom, and he dreams of
"more happiness than he has experienced in the wide and bustling world."

Already, ere his sword had found its scabbard, the people of Frederick
county had made him their member of the House of Burgesses. And the
quiet years roll by as the planter, merchant, and representative
superintends his plantation, ships his crops, posts his books, keeps his
diary, chases the fox for amusement, or rides over to Annapolis and
leads the dance at the Maryland capital--alternating between these
private pursuits and serving his people as member of the Legislature and
justice of the county court.

But ere long this happy life is broken. The air is electric with the
currents of revolution. England has launched forth on the fatal policy
of taxing her colonies without their consent. The spirit of liberty and
resistance is aroused. He is loth to part with the Mother Land, which he
still calls "home." But she turns a deaf ear to reason. The first
Colonial Congress is called. He is a delegate, and rides to Philadelphia
with Henry and Pendleton. The blow at Lexington is struck. The people
rush to arms. The sons of the Cavaliers spring to the side of the sons
of the Pilgrims. "Unhappy it is," he says, "that a brother's sword has
been sheathed in a brother's breast, and that the once happy plains of
America are to be either drenched in blood or inhabited by sl