the Ohio River has its
beginning, and they had named it Fort Duquesne. When they heard that
Washington was coming they set fire to the fort and fled down the river
in boats.

The English built a new fort at the same place, and called it Fort Pitt;
and there the city of Pittsburg has since grown up.

And now Washington resigned his commission as commander of the little
Virginian army. Perhaps he was tired of the war. Perhaps his great
plantation of Mount Vernon needed his care. We cannot tell.

But we know that, a few days later, he was married to Mrs. Martha
Custis, a handsome young widow who owned a fine estate not a great way
from Williamsburg, the capital of the colony. This was in January, 1759.

At about the same time he was elected a member of the House of Burgesses
of Virginia; and three months later, he went down to Williamsburg to
have a hand in making some of the laws for the colony.

He was now twenty-seven years old. Young as he was, he was one of the
richest men in the colony, and he was known throughout the country as
the bravest of American soldiers.

The war was still going on at the north. To most of the Virginians it
seemed to be a thing far away.

At last, in 1763, a treaty of peace was made. The French had been
beaten, and they were obliged to give up everything to the English. They
lost not only the Ohio Country and all the great West, but Canada also.

* * * * *

XI.--THE MUTTERINGS OF THE STORM.

And now for several years Washington lived the life of a country
gentleman. He had enough to do, taking care of his plantations, hunting
foxes with his sport-loving neighbors, and sitting for a part of each
year in the House of Burgesses at Williamsburg.

He was a tall man--more than six feet in height. He had a commanding
presence and a noble air, which plainly said: "This is no common man."

[Illustration: Mount Vernon.]

[Illustration: Tomb at Mount Vernon.]

He was shrewd in business. He was the best horseman and the best
walker in Virginia. And no man knew more about farming than he.

And so the years passed pleasantly enough at Mount Vernon, and there
were few who dreamed of the great events and changes that were soon to
take place.

King George the Third of England, who was the ruler of the thirteen
colonies, had done many unwise things.

He had made laws forbidding the colonists from trading with other
countries than his own.

He would not le