ton. In 1776 we
see him at the head of a band of men, and from that time on he was in
the thick of the fight. He fought at White Plains and Har-lem Heights,
and was so brave that the great Wash-ing-ton gave him high praise for
his work, and made him, when but eight-een years old, a cap-tain in the
ar-my. At the great fight at Tren-ton he got a bad wound and had to rest
for some time. In the big fights of the war this brave young man was one
of the first in the field; his hopes were ev-er high, and he put heart
in-to the weak and worn men who looked to him for help in the sad years
of the war. In 1780 he be-gan the stud-y of law with his old friend
Thom-as Jef-fer-son and soon led the bright men of the day.

So good a friend of his was Jef-fer-son, that the home to which Mon-roe
took his bride in 1785, was planned for him by Jef-fer-son, who, so it
is said, al-so gave him the nails to build it with.

In 1794 he was sent to France to look out for A-mer-i-ca's rights, but
he found talk of war there at that time. The peo-ple did not want a king
an-y long-er, but wished to be-come a free land like A-mer-i-ca, with
a pres-i-dent at the head; and Mad-i-son, who was a Re-pub-li-can, took
sides with the Re-pub-li-cans in France. The king did not like this, and
so Mad-i-son had to come home at the end of two years.

But he met with a wel-come at home, and his own State made him its
Gov-ern-or. In 1803 he was once more sent to France; this time to buy
the State of Lou-is-i-an-a from the French, and he paid Na-po-le-on for
this large State $15,000,000.

Twice Mon-roe was sent to Spain and once to Eng-land, where his task
was to force Eng-land to stop her search of A-mer-i-can ships. You
know he could not do this, for that was the cause of the War of 1812.

Tired and sad at heart, he came back home, and was glad to rest for a
while in his own home; but he was of too much use to his coun-try to be
i-dle long. Once more, in 1811, he was made Gov-ern-or of Vir-gin-i-a.

Then came the War of 1812; and it was Mon-roe, now Sec-re-ta-ry of
State, who, at the head of a few men, saw the Brit-ish land near
Wash-ing-ton and sent word to Mad-i-son to leave the cit-y. He al-so
act-ed as Sec-re-ta-ry of War at this time, and so well did he do his
part that in 1816 he was named for Pres-i-dent by the Dem-o-crats. He
got the most votes and so took the first place in our great land.

His first act was to pay off the great debt which the War of