[Illustration: Mount Vernon.]

[Illustration: Tomb at Mount Vernon.]

He was shrewd in business. He was the best horseman and the best
walker in Virginia. And no man knew more about farming than he.

And so the years passed pleasantly enough at Mount Vernon, and there
were few who dreamed of the great events and changes that were soon to
take place.

King George the Third of England, who was the ruler of the thirteen
colonies, had done many unwise things.

He had made laws forbidding the colonists from trading with other
countries than his own.

He would not let them build factories to weave their wool and flax into
cloth.

He wanted to force them to buy all their goods in England, and to send
their corn and tobacco and cotton there to pay for them.

And now after the long war with France he wanted to make the colonists
pay heavy taxes in order to meet the expenses of that war.

They must not drink a cup of tea without first paying tax on it; they
must not sign a deed or a note without first buying stamped paper on
which to write it.