Soon after this, Washington, though only a boy, was appointed official surveyor for the government, and so accurate were his surveys that they have ever remained the undisputed authority. Meantime, he had an eye to the practical, and, as a result, the choicest parts of the Shenandoah Valley came into possession of the Washingtons and remained with them for many generations. The able and talented young gentleman was frequently for long periods the guest of Lord Fairfax, after Lord Fairfax had moved from Belvoir to his “quarters” beyond the Blue Ridge, which he had made into a spacious new home named Greenway Court. All the culture of England was gathered there and nothing was failing to give the young man a clear idea of the social and political conditions of the world. World history has much to do in making individual history and so it was with Washington. England and France were rivals and at war. The war came to a close, and, so anxious was each for peace, that they settled their home differences and left to the future their rivalry for territory in North America. It then became a race for them, who could occupy and defend territory the most rapidly. The vast overlapping claims ran down from the Saint Lawrence River to the Ohio River and on to the Mississippi. French explorers had certainly been the first to pass through that region and map out the territory, but the English had occupied the eastern coast and given land titles that ran west to the setting sun. Evidently, the mother countries had settled their differences in Europe only to turn their energies to securing and fortifying their claims in the new world. Strange indeed is the course of destiny. The revolutionary grandmothers used to recite a very vague stanza which ran as follows: “A lion and a unicorn Were fighting for the crown Up jumped a little dog And knocked them both down.” At least, England lost most of its possessions in North America, France lost all, and a little nation appeared that was the cradle of liberty for mankind and the unsurpassable maker of a greater world. II. LAND SPECULATION AS THE BEGINNING LEADING TO AMERICAN SELF-GOVERNMENT We may reasonably find a beginning of the American republic, involving the career of George Washington, in the formation of what is known as the Ohio Company. If this company had been formed of unscrupulous speculators, as were other big franchises granted by kings, it could well have been a near-relative to the get-rich-quick manias that present so queer a view of men’s minds, not only in those days but even in present times. But such honorable men as Lawrence and Augustine Washington were prominent in that company, and it was not long till Lawrence had chief management of the company.