sunk below mediocrity,
being industrious, clear-headed, sagacious, and able to avail himself
of the labors and merits of others. As his letters show, he became a
thoroughly well-informed man. In surveying, farming, stock-raising, and
military matters he read the best authorities, often sending to London
for them. He steadily fitted himself for his life as a country gentleman
of Virginia, and doubtless aspired to sit in the House of Burgesses. He
never claimed to be a genius, and was always modest and unassuming, with
all his self-respect and natural dignity.

In the middle of the eighteenth century the cultivation of tobacco, to
which the wealth and enterprise of Virginia were directed, was not as
lucrative as it had been, and among the planters, aristocratic as they
were in sentiments and habits, there were many who found it difficult to
make two ends meet, and some, however disdainful of manual labor, were
compelled to be as economical and saving as New England farmers. Their
sons found it necessary to enter the learned professions or become men
of business, since they could not all own plantations. Washington, whose
family was neither rich nor poor, prepared himself for the work of a
surveyor, for which he was admirably fitted, by his hardihood,
enterprise, and industry.

Lord Fairfax, who had become greatly interested in the youth and had
made him a frequent companion, giving him the inestimable advantage of
familiar intercourse with a thoroughbred gentleman of varied
accomplishments, in 1748 sent this sixteen-year-old lad to survey his
vast estates in the unexplored lands at the base of the Alleghany
Mountains. During this rough expedition young Washington was exposed to
the hostilities of unfriendly Indians and the fatigues and hardships of
the primeval wilderness; but his work was thoroughly and accurately
performed, and his courage, boldness, and fidelity attracted the notice
of men of influence and rank. Through the influence of his friend Lord
Fairfax he was appointed a public surveyor, and for three years he
steadfastly pursued this laborious profession.

A voyage to Barbadoes in 1751 cultivated his habits of clear
observation, and in 1752 his brother's death imposed on him the
responsibility of the estates and the daughter left to his care by his
brother Lawrence.

Young Washington had already, through the influence of his brother, been
appointed major and adjutant-general of one of the military district