enthusiasm for England. George III, a monarch as headstrong as he was
narrow, with insanity lurking in his mind, succeeded to the throne in
1760, and he seized the first opportunity to get rid of his masterful
Minister, William Pitt. He replaced him with the Earl of Bute, a
Scotchman, and a man of ingenious parts, but with the incurable Tory
habit of insisting that it was still midnight long after the sun was
shining in the forenoon of another day.

[Footnote 1: Marshall: _The Life of George Washington_ (Philadelphia,
1805, 5 vols.), II, 68.]

Before the Treaty was signed and the world had begun to spin in a new
groove, which optimists thought would stretch on forever, an equally
serious change had come to the private life of George Washington. To
the surprise of his friends, who had begun to doubt whether he would
ever get married, he found his life's companion and married her
without delay. The notion seems to have been popular during his
lifetime, and it certainly has continued to later days, that he was
too bashful to feel easy in ladies' society. I find no evidence
for this mistaken idea. Although little has been recorded of the
intimacies of Washington's youth, there are indications of more than
one "flame" and that he was not dull and stockish with the young
women. As early as 1748, we hear of the Low-Land Beauty who had
captivated him, and who is still to be identified. Even earlier, in
his school days, he indulged in writing love verses. But we need not
infer that they were inspired by living damsels or by the Muses.

"Oh ye Gods why should my poor resistless Heart
Stand to oppose thy might and power--