man receiving the next highest number was to be vice-president.

Washington received the whole number of votes, 69; John Adams received
34. They were elected the first president and vice-president of the
United States.



The world has only one Washington. At sixteen he was county surveyor,
the support of his widowed mother; at nineteen he was military
inspector, with the rank of major; at twenty the governor of Virginia
sent him six hundred miles to ask the commander of the French forces "by
what authority he had invaded the king's dominions"; at twenty-two he
was colonel in command of a regiment under General Braddock, and in the
absence of a chaplain he read prayers daily himself. He saved the
remnant of that ill-fated army from annihilation, and fifteen years
after an aged Indian chief came to see the man at whom he had fired many
times and who was protected by the Great Spirit. At his entrance as a
member of the legislature of Virginia, the speaker greeted him with
thanks for his military services. Washington arose to reply and blushed
and stammered. The speaker said, "Mr. Washington, your modesty only
equals your valor." He was a member of the first Continental Congress
of whom Patrick Henry said, "Mr. Rutledge, of South Carolina, is the
great orator, but for solid information and sound judgement Col.
Washington is unquestionably the greatest man on that floor." When with
one voice Congress chose him to be the commander-in-chief, he said, "I
beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in this room, that I this
day declare with the utmost sincerity that I do not think myself equal
to the command I am honored with. No pecuniary consideration would
tempt me to accept this position. I will keep an exact account of my