OF

GEORGE WASHINGTON;

WITH

CURIOUS ANECDOTES,

EQUALLY HONOURABLE TO HIMSELF,

AND

EXEMPLARY TO HIS YOUNG COUNTRYMEN.

A life how useful to his country led!

How loved while living! how revered now dead!
Lisp lisp his name, ye children yet unborn!
And with like deeds your own great names adorn.

Embellished with Six Engravings.

BY M. L. WEEMS,

FORMERLY RECTOR OF MOUNT VERNON PARISH.

The author has treated this great subject with admirable "success in a new
way. He turns all the actions of Washington to the encouragement of virtue
by a careful application of numerous exemplifications drawn from the conduct
of the founder of our Republic from his earliest life."-H. LEE, Major General,
U.S. Army.

PHILADELPHIA :

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.

37

-KD44985

HARVARD

UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE LIFE

OF

WASHINGTON.

CHAPTER I.

On! as along the stream of time thy name
Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame;
May then these lines to future days descend,
And prove thy cOUNTRY'S good thine only end!

"Ан, gentlemen!"-exclaimed Bonaparte 'twas just as he was about to embark for Egypt-some young Americans happening at Toulon, and anxious to see the mighty Corsican, had obtained the honour of an introduction to him. Scarcely were past the customary salutations, when he eagerly asked, "how fares your countryman, the great WASHINGTON?" "He was very well," replied the youths, brightening at the thought, that they were the countrymen of Washington; "he was very well, general, when we left America."—"Ah, gentlemen!" rejoined he, "Washington can never be otherwise than well.-The measure of his fame is full.-Posterity will talk of him with reverence as the founder of a great empire, when my name shall be lost in the vortex of Revolutions !"

Who, then, that has a spark of virtuous curiosity, but must wish to know the history of him whose name could thus awaken the sigh even of Bonaparte? But is not his history already known? Have not a