officer, and intrusted with service the
most delicate yet most arduous, requiring for its performance the
combined abilities of pioneer, soldier, and diplomat. We have seen him
returning, crowned with success, and receiving the applause of his
countrymen.

We have seen him, a little later, leading a military expedition into
that wilderness, to roll back a wave of French encroachment supported by
deluded savages, and exhibiting the wisdom of a veteran in his marches,
conflicts, and retreats. And, later still, we have seen him wisely
advising a British general how to fight, but to be answered with
contempt. We have seen him left to act upon the principles involved in
that advice, when his commander was laid low, and permitted to save, by
most brave and judicious management, the remnant of the broken army.

We have seen him in other campaigns of that old French and Indian War,
always judicious, brave, and successful, and always evidently
God-protected; and we have seen that devotion to his country rewarded by
the love and admiration of his fellow-men, and the affections and
fortune of one of the loveliest of Virginia's daughters who became his
wife, and was his companion, solace, and joy, during the remaining forty
years of his life.

We have seen him a chosen member of the Virginia house of burgesses year
after year, always remarkable for his wisdom, his patriotism, and his
prudence; always conservative, yet never lagging when a crisis demanded
action--one of the most decisive when reconciliation with the
mother-country was evidently impossible, and a resort to arms absolutely
necessary.

We have seen him at the kindling of that war, a sage and influential
member of the grand national council; and soon afterward called by that
body to the supreme leadership of the armies formed to fight for liberty
and independence. We have seen him so devoted to the high and holy trust
committed to his case, that for more than six years he never crossed the
threshold of his delightful mansion on the Potomac, where he had enjoyed
many long years of connubial happiness, the pleasures of social
intercourse, and the delights of rural pursuits.

We have seen him at the close of a successful seven years' war for
independence, venerated and almost worshipped by a grateful people,
refusing a proffered crown, resigning his commission into the hands of
the power that gave it, and retiring to private life at his own dear
Mount Vernon. And we