Excerpt from Address; Subject: General Washington, for February 22, 1867

General Washington was born in Westmoreland county, Virginia, February 22, 1732. His father was Augustine, son of Lawrence, and grandson of the first John. His mother was Mary Ball, a daughter of a most respectable Virginia family. She was a lady of great merit, of many virtues, and of superior good sense. She did not marry a sec ond time, and by her tact, her vigilance, and her prudence supplied admirably the place of father to her son. It was at one time settled that young George should enter the British navy as a midshipman, under, the auspices of Admiral Vernon, who was the friend of his oldest brother Lawrence, his father's son by his first wife, who had served under the Admiral and General \wentworth at Carthagena, in South America but his mother opposed the project, and it was aban doned. It is needless to speculate much upon the dispositions of Prov idence, about which it is impossible to know anything without a reve lation, and about which it is easy to imagine everything but still I somewhat persuade myself that she had been made an instrument for reserving her son for 'a much higher destiny, for the achievement of great actions that were to unite his name indissolubly with the inde pendence and greatness of his country; not that I assume, however, that without him its independence could not have been achieved. I believe it could have been, and if not in 1781 in less than forty years afterwards. It will not be doing injustice though to the eminent, devoted, and patriotic men of whom he was the associate and coworker in the great cause, to say that he was first in the Cabinet, first in the field, and first in the confidence of the public. I am not now imitat ing the famous sentence, not by me to be imitated, First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fellow-citizens.

Under the superintendence of his wise, excellent, and affectionate mother Washington received a sound, plain English education, and no more, the one best adapted it may be for those who are born to be great actors and achievers on the world's wide theater. Very few great scholars have been great warriors, great statesmen, or great sovereigns. It may be because they prefer academic shades and scien tific pursuits to all the glories of the' Senate, of the forum, or of the tented field, and in this they may have been wise. It is pleasant to recollect that in his youth Washington essayed poetry as well as prose, though to the first he gave but little of his time or thoughts probably. He had a greater work before him than to build the lofty rhyme, which was to deliver his country from British tyranny, and with his glorious and never to be forgotten coadjutors to lay the foundations of a great empire.

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