Hume, in his account of the siege of Bristol, has the following passage:--"One party led by Lord Grandison was beaten off and its commander himself mortally wounded. Another, conducted by Colonel Bellasis, met with a like fate. But Washington, with a less party, finding a place in the curtain weaker than the rest, broke in, and quickly made room for the horse to follow." This was in 1643. Five years afterwards, that deluded monarch, Charles I., suffered the just consequences of his offences against the majesty of the people of England, and from that time the cause of royalty appeared desperate. The more distinguished and obnoxious adherents of the Stuarts exiled themselves in foreign lands, and the date of the supposed arrival of the first Washington in Virginia, accords well with the supposition that he may have been the same person mentioned by Ashmole and Hume. In an old collection of poetry, by Sir John Menzies[2] and others, there is a fine copy of verses to the memory of Mr. Washington, page to the king, who died in Spain. In the year 1640, William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth, married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Washington. But the name and family of Washington are now extinct in the land of our forefathers. When General Washington was about making his will, he caused inquiries to be instituted, being desirous to leave some memorial to all his relations. The result was a conviction that none of the family existed in that country. But the topic is rather curious than important. The subject of this biography could receive little additional dignity through a descent from the most illustrious families of Christendom. He stands alone in the pure atmosphere of his own glory. He derived no title to honors from his ancestry, and left no child but his country to inherit his fame. [Footnote 2: Perhaps _Mennes_--Ed.] The house in which Washington was born stood about half a mile from the junction of Pope's Creek with the Potomac, and was either burned or pulled down long previous to the revolution. A few scanty relics alone remain to mark the spot which will ever be sacred in the eyes of posterity. A clump of old decayed {397} fig trees, probably coeval with the mansion, yet exists; a number of vines, and shrubs, and flowers still reproduce themselves every year as if to mark its site, and flourish among the hallowed ruins; and a stone, placed there by Mr. George Washington Custis, bears the simple inscription, "Here, on the 11th of February," (O.S.) "1732, George Washington was born."