Note 43 — Chapter III · The French War.

“He had before felt the influence of the tender passion. At the age of seventeen he was smitten by the graces of a fair one, whom he called a ‘Lowland beauty,’ and whose praises he recorded in glowing strains, while wandering with his surveyor’s compass among the Alleghany Mountains. On that occasion he wrote desponding letters to a friend, and indited plaintive verses, but never ventured to reveal his emotions to the lady who was unconsciously the cause of his pains.”—Sparks’ Life of Washington, p. 73.