ch satisfaction that he soon after received a commission as public
surveyor, an appointment which gave authority to his surveys, and
enabled him to enter them in the county offices.

The next three years were devoted without intermission, except in the
winter months, to his profession. There were few surveyors in Virginia,
and the demand for their services was consequently great, and their
remuneration ample. Washington spent a considerable portion of these
three years among the Alleghanies. The exposures and hardships of the
wilderness could be endured only for a few weeks together, and he
recruited his strength by surveying, at intervals, tracts and farms in
the settled districts. Even at that early age his regular habits enabled
him to acquire some property; and his probity and business talent
obtained for him the confidence of the leading men of the colony.

At the time he attained his nineteenth year the frontiers were
threatened with Indian depredations and French encroachments. To meet
this danger the province was divided into military districts, to each of
which an adjutant-general with the rank of major was appointed. George
Washington was commissioned to one of these districts, with a salary of
L150 per annum. There were many provincial officers (his brother among
the number) in Virginia, who had served in the expedition against
Carthagena and in the West Indies. Under them he studied military
exercises and tactics, entering with alacrity and zeal into the duties
of his office. These pursuits were varied by a voyage to Barbadoes, and
a residence of some months in that colony, in company with his brother
Lawrence, who was sent there by his physicians to seek relief from a
pulmonary complaint. Fragments of the journal kept by George Washington
on this excursion have been preserved; they evince an interest in a wide
range of subjects, and habits of minute observation. At sea the log-book
was daily copied, and the application of his favorite mathematics to
navigation studied; in the island, the soil, agricultural products,
modes of culture, fruits, commerce, military force, fortifications,
manners of the inhabitants, municipal regulations and government, all
were noted in this journal. Lawrence Washington died in July, 1752,
leaving a wife and infant daughter, and upon George, although the
youngest executor, devolved the whole management of the property, in
which he had a residuary interest. The affairs of the est