had been given him along with his welcome to the governor's house. His fresh, boyish complexion was left somewhat pitted, and he wore the marks of Major Clark's hospitality to his dying day.

Years afterward, when small-pox was epidemic in his army, General Washington expressed himself as glad not to be in danger of taking the "disorder," as a result of this youthful experience on the island of Barbados. Most youths of his age would have denounced those who had given them the disease, or would at least have murmured against their luck, with a careful record of the symptoms or disgusting details of their sickness, but George expressed no resentment, and referred only to the kindness of the Clarks to him in his tedious and tantalizing illness.

During his return voyage "the weather and wind" seemed to be the only "news of the day." It must have been a lonely, dreary Christmas and New Year's he spent tossing on the briny deep. It was February before he reached Mount Vernon with Lawrence's messages to his wife. Before they started for Bermuda they received a letter from the patient telling them not to come

to him there. He had gone to the more northerly island in March and the cooler climate had aggravated his affliction so that he wrote to them to stay where they were, as he was "hurrying home to his grave." He arrived at Mount Vernon in the spring and died in July, 1752, leaving a baby daughter, Sarah, heiress of his wealth. Two years later, she died, and, as Lawrence seems long to have expected, George Washington became master of Mount Vernon.

CHAPTER IX

THE OHIO COMPANY'S TROUBLES WITH THE FRENCH AND INDIANS

BY THE terms of Lawrence Washington's will, George was appointed one of several men to see that all his wishes were carried out, besides being manager of the estate of Mount Vernon. As he understood his brother's business better than any one else, he became acting executor, although he was not twenty-one. As he went about

the sad business he saw, as he never could see before, how Lawrence had begun long ago to plan for them all, and, as so often happens, he began really to appreciate his brother's finer qualities after he had gone. Washington Irving, the historian, and one of the first and best of American authors, wrote of this elder brother:

"He was a noble-spirited, pureminded, accomplished gentleman; honored by the public and beloved by his friends. The paternal care ever manifested by him for his youthful brother George, and the influence his own character and conduct must have had upon him in his ductile years, should link their memories together in history, and endear the name of Lawrence Washington to every American."

Brother Augustine was also a member of the Ohio Company, and Lawrence's control of it, aside from the money they had invested in the enterprise, kept the Washingtons interested in its adventures. They were public spirited and would naturally have followed the fortunes of this colonization scheme for the sake of its bearing upon the future of the colony.

Besides, their grant covered nearly the whole of what is now the State of West Virginia and southeastern Ohio, and became a part of the "bone of contention" over which France and England soon fought what was known as the "Seven Years' War."

Christopher Gist had reported that affairs along the Ohio were coming rapidly to a crisis. He had been instructed by the Ohio Company to return, build a fort, and lay out towns beyond the Ohio, which he began to do. The Ohio Company was to settle one hundred and fifty families in the territory granted to them by the king of England.

The English claimed the continent of North America by right of discovery. The Cabots and others had taken formal possession of all the country westward to the Pacific, thinking America was an island a few hundred miles wide. The only place a white man had ever crossed was at the Isthmus of Panama, and there it was but fifty miles wide. The French scouted such a claim. They had taken possession of the waterways, which were most important before the days of railroads. They had settled at the mouth of the Mississippi, had gone

from the Great Lakes to the source of that stream, which was called by the Indians, "the Father of Waters," and had made settlements down through what are now known as Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana, as the names of many cities, La Crosse, Eau Claire, Prairie du Chien, La Salle, Joliet, Terre Haute, Vincennes, and many others, still testify.

Lake Champlain, and other names in Northern New York show the enterprise of the French, whose missionaries were vigilant and whose traders formed closer friendships with the Indians than the English did, French pioneers often marrying Indian women.

The French started out to establish a chain of forts along the waterways from Lake Erie to New Orleans. They had a fort, Presque Isle, on Lake Erie, near the site of the present city of Erie, Pennsylvania. Only fifteen miles from this fort they built another, near the source of French Creek. Another at the village of Venango where this stream, also called the Venango River, flows into the Allegheny.

These are the first links in a long chain of forts which were to extend down the Ohio and the Mississippi, and control the water courses