Let us now turn our eyes to the Western Continent, and contemplate a scene of similar import, but under circumstances of a totally different character. It is the 22d February, 1732. The locality is a distant colony, the spot the verge of an immense, untrodden and unexplored wilderness, the habitation a log cabin, with its chinks filled in with clay, and its sloping roof patched over with clapboards. Snow covers the ground, and a chill wintery wind is drifting the flakes, and moaning through the forest. Two immense chimneys stand at either end of the house, and give promise of cheerful comfort and primitive hospitality within, totally in contrast with external nature. There are but four small rooms in the dwelling, in one of which Mary Ball, the wife of Augustine Washington, has just given birth to a son. No dukes or marquises or earls are there to attest the humble event. There are no princes of the blood to wrap the infant in the insignia of royalty, and fold about his limbs the tapestried escutcheon of a kingdom. His first breath is not drawn in the center of a mighty capitol, the air laden with perfume, and trembling to the tones of soft music and the "murmurs of low fountains." But the child is received from its Mother's womb by hands imbrowned with honest labor, and laid upon a lowly couch, indicative only of a backwoodsman's home and an American's inheritance. He, too, is christened George, and forty-three years afterward took command of the American forces assembled on the plains of old Cambridge. But if their births were dissimilar, their rearing and education were still more unlike. From his earliest recollection the Prince heard only the language of flattery, moved about from palace to palace, just as caprice dictated, slept upon the cygnet's down, and grew up in indolence, self-will and vanity, a dictator from his cradle. The peasant boy, on the other hand, was taught from his infancy that labor was honorable, and hardships indispensable to vigorous health. He early learned to sleep alone amid the dangers of a boundless wilderness, a stone for his pillow, and the naked sod his bed; whilst the voices of untamed nature around him sang his morning and his evening hymns. Truth, courage and constancy were early implanted in his mind by a mother's counsels, and the important lesson of life was taught by a father's example, that when existence ceases to be useful it ceases to be happy. Early manhood ushered them both into active life; the one as king over extensive dominions, the other as a modest, careful, and honest district surveyor. Having traced the two Georges to the threshold of their career, let us now proceed one step further, and take note of the first great public event in the lives of either.