Transcriber added a background to the title page, used it as the cover of this eBook, and placed the result in the Public Domain. The original cover is included in the illustrated versions of this eBook. Spelling was made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book. Frequent simple typographical errors (of spelling and punctuation) were corrected. Several commas were changed to periods to avoid run-on sentences. Unmatched quotation marks were remedied. Citations that mostly were in italics but occasionally in quotation marks have been changed here to italics. Other irregular citations have not been changed. Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of inconsistent hyphenation have not been changed. Page numbers 5-8 did not exist in two original copies of this book, and there was no Table of Contents. Transcriber added a Table of Contents between the Preface and Chapter I, using the Chapter names in the original text. Footnotes originally were at the bottoms of the pages on which they were referenced. In this eBook, they have been moved to the end of the book and renumbered sequentially. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of George Washington, by John S. C. Abbott