one voted by Congress, it was not
struck until after that of the Chevalier de Fleury, which was voted
three years later. Its designs, and those of the medals awarded to
General Horatio Gates for Saratoga, General Nathaniel Greene for Eutaw
Springs, General Daniel Morgan, Lieutenant-Colonels William Augustine
Washington and John Eager Howard for the Cowpens, General Anthony
Wayne and Major John Stewart for Stony Point, and Captain John Paul
Jones for the capture of the Serapis, were composed by commissioners
appointed by the French Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, at
the request of Colonel David Humphreys and of Mr. Jefferson. The
legend of the reverse of the General Washington medal, as originally
proposed, was HOSTIBUS or ANGLIS PRIMUM FUGATIS. Several of the medals
are treated of at length in the Introduction, to which, to avoid
repetition, the reader is referred.

PIERRE SIMON DUVIVIER was born in Paris, November 5, 1731. He was the
son of Jean Duvivier, a member of the Royal Academy of Painting and
Sculpture, and the grandson of Jean Duvivier, known as Duvivier "_le
pere_," the first of this distinguished family of medal engravers, who
lived in Liege at the beginning of the 17th century. Pierre Simon
Duvivier was engraver-general of the Paris Mint prior to 1793, and
executed medals of many eminent persons. America is indebted to him
for those of General Washington, Lieutenant-Colonel de Fleury,
Lieutenant-Colonel William Augustine Washington, and Lieutenant-Colonel
John Eager Howard. He was a member of the Academy of Fine Arts, and
died June 10, 1819.

GEORGE WASHINGTON was born near Pope's Creek, Westmoreland County,
Virginia, February 22, 1732. He lost his father when but ten years of
age, and in 1752, in consequence of the death of his elder brother,
came into possession of the estate of Mount Vernon, on the Potomac
River, and other property. The same year he received a commission as
major of militia, and in 1755 became colonel and aid-de-camp to (p. 003)
General Braddock. On the death of that officer in the disastrous march
against Fort Duquesne, Washington conducted the retreat, and was
shortly afterward appointed commander of the Virginia troops. In 1774
he was elected member of the first Continental Congress, held in
Philadelphia, and in the following year was appointed commander-in-chief
of the Continental Army, taking command of the forces at Cambridge,
July 3, 1775. On March 17, 1776,