On August 14 George Washington was appointed to the supreme command of
the Virginian forces, with his headquarters at Winchester, and was
occupied in the defence of a wide frontier with an insufficient force,
until the expedition against Fort Duquesne in 1758, when he planted the
British flag on its smoking ruins, and put an end to the French
domination of the Ohio.

His marriage to Mrs. Martha Custis, a young and wealthy widow, was
celebrated on January 6, 1759; he took his seat in the House of
Burgesses at Williamsburg, and established himself at Mount Vernon to
develop his estates. A large Virginia estate, in those days, was a
little empire.


_The Dawn of Independence_


The definitive treaty of peace between France and England was signed at
Fontainebleau in 1763; but the tranquility of the colonies was again
broken by an Indian insurrection, known as Pontiac's war. Washington had
no part in its suppression, but he was soon to be called again to the
defence of his country.

He was in his place in the House of Burgesses on May 29, 1765, when the
claims of Britain to tax the colony were first repudiated, and it was
declared that the General Assembly of Virginia had the exclusive right
to tax the inhabitants, and that whoever maintained the contrary should
be deemed an enemy to the colony. These resolutions were the signal for
general applause throughout the continent.