Page:The Ifs of History (1907).pdf/103



NE summer day, in 1746, a British ship of war lay in the Potomac River below the place where the city of Washington now stands. The officers of the ship had been visiting at Mount Vernon, which was the residence of Major Lawrence Washington, adjutant-general of Virginia.

No vessel of the royal navy entered the Potomac River without a visit on the part of its officers to Major Washington's house. He had been in the king's service at the siege of Cartagena and elsewhere. Admiral Ver-