She was a sweet-natured girl, but very frail, who died before long, probably of the same disease which had carried her father off, and, until its infectious nature was understood, used to decimate families from generation to generation.
To have thrust upon him, at the age of twenty, the management of a large estate might seem a heavy burden for any young man; but George Washington was equal to the task, and it seems as if much of his career up to that time was a direct preparation for it.

He knew every foot of its fields and meadows, of its woodlands and streams; he knew where each crop grew, and its rotation; he had taken great interest in horses and cattle, and in the methods for maintaining and improving their breed; and now, of course being master, his power of choosing good men to do the work was put to the test.

But he had not been long at these new occupations before public duties drew him away from them.
Though they knew it not, the European settlers in North America were approaching a life-and-death catastrophe.

From the days when the English and the French first settled on the continent, Fate ordained for them an irrepressible conflict.

Should France prevail?
Should England prevail?
With the growth of their colonies, both the English and the French felt their rivalry sharpened.