In his will Washington left tokens of remembrance “to the acquaintances and friends of my juvenile years, Lawrence Washington and Robert Washington of Chotanck,” the latter presumably the “dear Robin” of his earliest letter, and these two very distant kinsmen, whom he had come to know while staying at Wakefield, are the earliest friends of whom any record exists. Contemporary with them was a “Dear Richard,” whose letters gave Washington “unspeakable pleasure, as I am convinced I am still in the memory of so worthy a friend,—a friendship I shall ever be proud of increasing.” Next in time came his intimacy with the Fairfaxes and Carlyles, which began with Washington’s visits to his brother Lawrence at Mount Vernon. About four miles from that place, at Belvoir, lived the Fairfaxes; and their kinspeople, the Carlyles, lived at Alexandria. Lawrence Washington had married Ann Fairfax, and through his influence his brother George was taken into the employment of Lord Fairfax, half as clerk and half as surveyor of his great tract of land, “the northern neck,” which he had obtained by marriage with a daughter of Lord Culpeper, who in turn had obtained it from the “Merrie Monarch” by means so disreputable that they are best left unstated. From that time till his death Washington corresponded with several of the family and was a constant visitor at Belvoir, as the Fairfaxes were at Mount Vernon. [Illustration: SURVEY OF WASHINGTON’S BIRTHPLACE (WAKEFIELD), 1743] In 1755 Washington told his brother that “to that family I am under many obligations, particularly the old gentleman,” but as time went on he more than paid the debt. In 1757 he acted as pallbearer to William Fairfax, and twelve years later his diary records, “Set off with Mrs. Washington and Patsey,… in order to stand for Mr. B. Fairfax’s third son, which I did together with my wife, Mr. Warner Washington and his lady.” For one of the family he obtained an army commission, and for another he undertook the care of his property during a visit to England; a care which unexpectedly lengthened, and was resigned only when Washington’s time became public property. Nor did that lessen his services or the Fairfaxes’ need of them, for in the Revolution that family were loyalists. Despite this, “the friendship,” Washington assured them, “which I ever professed and felt for you, met no diminution from the difference in our political sentiments,” and in 1778 he was able to secure the safety of Lord Fairfax from persecution at the hands of the Whigs, a service acknowledged by his lordship in the following words: