His friends had long wanted him to visit England, believing, doubtless, from special information, that great honors awaited him there. No doubt there was in easy reach the usually much-coveted political preferment, such as might have made him beholden to the King through all his future career. But we are perhaps entitled to believe that Washington’s views of those honors were not qualified by the grateful respect that was necessary. An American of his honor and character probably cherished the good will of his countrymen as superior to any royal condescension. To these suggestions for a visit to England, he returned a characteristic reply, “I am now, I believe, fixed in this seat, with an agreeable partner for life, and I hope to find more happiness in retirement than I ever experienced in the wide and bustling world.” At the end of the session of the Virginia legislature, Washington and his family left the “White House” and made their home at Mount Vernon. Here he fully believed he was settled in a life of happiness and peace. It was the home of his childhood which he had spent with his beloved mother and his half-brother Lawrence. This home on the beautiful highlands of the Potomac was indeed the center of a little empire. It was a system of cultured, wealthy people, graded on down to the colored servants, in which everything needed for luxury, pleasure or enterprise was made and ready on the grounds. The home life of the Washington family is a revelation of the aristocratic democracy of the times. Many a story is told showing the wilderness culture and luxury mingled with the common interests of the lowly life. The treaty of peace, now including all affairs in the colonies, which was signed in 1763, between England and France, was greeted as a happy ending of all border troubles for the colonies. But, unfortunately, it seemed to let loose the savagery of the Indians, whose tribes were now going to pieces before the advancing English Settlements. The right to the wilderness was a hand-to-hand conflict, in which the pioneer frontiersmen won the great victory for modern civilization. III. THE MOMENTOUS STRUGGLE BETWEEN MIGHT AND RIGHT The border warfare continued as ferociously as ever before. Washington, being out of military life, with heavy business responsibilities upon him, did not become involved in these conflicts.