The imperial State of Virginia needed a public surveyor. This lad of seventeen years had already risen so high in the estimation of the community, that he was appointed to that responsible office. For three years he performed, with singular ability, the duties which thus devolved upon him. Great must have been the enjoyment which he found, in the field of labor thus opened before him. The scenes to which he was introduced must have been, at times, quite enchanting. The wonderful scenery presented to the eye in beautiful Virginia, the delicious climate, the grandeur of the star-bespangled sky, as witnessed from the midnight encampment, the majestic forests abounding in game, the placid lake, whose mirrored waters were covered with water-fowl of every variety of gorgeous plumage, the silent river, along which the Indian’s birch canoe glided almost as a meteor--all these infinitely diversified scenes must, at times, have entranced a young man in the vigor of youth and health, and buoyant with the spirit of high enterprise. Lord Fairfax had become the firm friend of George Washington. The opulent English nobleman had reared for himself a large and architecturally beautiful mansion of stone, beyond the Blue Ridge, in one of the most sheltered, sunny, and lovely valleys of the Alleghanies. This beautiful world of ours can present no region more attractive than that in which Lord Fairfax constructed his transatlantic home.[6] His opulence enabled him to live there in splendor quite baronial. Many illustrious families had emigrated to this State of wonderful beauty and inexhaustible capabilities. There was no colony, on this continent, which could present more cultivated and polished society than Virginia. Distinguished guests frequented the parlors of Lord Fairfax. Among them all, there were none more honored than George Washington. He was one of the handsomest and most dignified of men, and a gentleman by birth, by education, and by all his instincts. The tide of emigration, pouring in a constant flood across the Atlantic, was now gradually forcing its way over the first range of the Alleghanies, into the fertile and delightful valleys beyond. Still farther west there were realms, much of which no white man’s foot had ever trod, and whose boundaries no one knew. The French, who were prosperously established in Canada, and who, by their wise policy, had effectually won the confidence and affection of the natives, were better acquainted with this vast region than were the English; and they much more fully appreciated its wonderful capabilities. And still the English colonies, in population, exceeded those of the French ten to one.