[148] He kept all his life a feeling that his early education had been
incomplete. Strongly advised by David Humphreys to write an account of
the great events in which he had taken part, he answered that he would
not, on account of a lack of leisure, and a "consciousness of a
defective education." July 25, 1785. When Lafayette was beseeching him
to visit France some day, he answered: "Remember, my good friend, that I
am unacquainted with your language, that I am too far advanced in years
to acquire a knowledge of it." September 30, 1779. Franklin added later
his entreaties to those of Lafayette; see Washington's answer, October
11, 1780.
[149] "For my own part I can answer I have a constitution hardy enough
to encounter and undergo the most severe trials and, I flatter myself,
resolution to face what any man durst." To Governor Dinwiddie, May 29,
1754.
[150] In continuation of the La Verendrie's (father and sons) bold
attempt to reach the great Western sea, a token of which, a leaden
tablet with a French and Latin inscription and the arms of France, was
recently discovered near Fort Pierre, South Dakota. See _South Dakota
Historical Collections_, 1914, pp. 89 ff.
[151] _The Journal of Major George Washington, sent by the Hon. Robert
Dinwiddie, Esq., his Majesty's Lieut.-Governor and Commander in chief of
Virginia, to the commandant of the French forces in Ohio._ Williamsburg,
1754.
[152] _Mémoire contenant le précis des faits avec leurs pièces
justificatives pour servir de response aux observations envoyées par les
ministres d'Angleterre dans les cours d'Europe_, Paris, 1756.
[153] "As to any danger from the enemy, I look upon it as trifling."
Washington to his brother, John, May 14, 1755.
[154] Washington to Dinwiddie, July 18, 1755.
[155] Same date. Washington revisited the region in October, 1770, but
the entries in his journal contain no allusion to previous events: "We
lodged [at Fort Pitt] in what is called the town, about three hundred
yards from the fort.... These houses, which are built of logs, and
ranged into streets, are on the Monongahela, and, I suppose, may be
twenty in number, and inhabited by Indian traders, etc. The fort is
built on the point between the rivers Allegheny and Monongahela, but not
so near the pitch of it as Fort Duquesne."
[156] To Richard Washington, merchant, London; from Fort Loudoun, April
15, 1757. The same letter enlightens us as to Washington's tastes
concerning things material. He orders "sundry things" to be sent him
from London, adding: "Whatever goods you may send me where the prices
are not absolutely limited, you will let them be fashionable, neat and
good in their several kinds." Same tastes shown in his letter to Robert
Cary and Co., ordering a chariot "in the new taste, handsome, genteel,
and light," painted preferably green, but in that he would be "governed
by fashion." (June 6, 1768.) The chariot was sent in September; it was
green, "all the framed work of the body gilt, handsome scrawl, shields,
ornamented with flowers all over the panels."
[157] Mount Vernon, April 5, 1765.
[158] This continued until the proclamation of independence. By letter
of March 19, 1776, Washington notified the President of Congress of the
taking of Boston, and the retreat of the "ministerial army." The flag of
the "insurgents" was then the British flag with thirteen white and red
stripes, emblematic of the thirteen colonies.
[159] An appointment accepted in a characteristically modest spirit, as
shown by his letter to his "dear Patsy," his wife, giving her the news,
and that to Colonel Bassett, where he says: "I can answer but for three
things, a firm belief in the justice of our cause, close attention in
the prosecution of it, and the strictest integrity. If these cannot
supply the place of ability and experience, the cause will suffer, and,
more than probable, my character along with it, as reputation derives
its principal support from success." June 9, 1775.
[160] To his brother, John, December 18, 1776.
[161] August 19, 1777.
[162] November 14, 1778.
[163] To Washington, June 15, 1777. Same impression later (1785) on
Lafayette, who saw the Prussian grand manoeuvres, and sent an account of
them to Washington: "The Prussian army is a perfectly regular piece of
machinery.... All the situations which may be imagined in war, all the
movements which they may cause, have been by constant habit so well
inculcated in their heads that all those operations are performed almost
mechanically." February 8, 1786. _Mémoires, correspondance et manuscrits
du Général Lafayette_, Bruxelles, 1838, I, 204.
[164] Pp. 10 ff.
[165] To General Sullivan, September, 1778.
[166] December 12, 1779.
[167] To President Reed, May 28, 1780.
[168] "Before York," October 12, 1781.
[169] To Lafayette, October 20, 1782.
[170] February 6, 1783.
[171] Sending him a farewell letter in which he said: "You may rest
assured that your abilities and dispositions to serve this country were
so well understood, and your service so properly appreciated that the
residence of no public minister will ever be longer remembered or his
absence more sincerely regretted. It will not be forgotten that you were
a witness to the dangers, the sufferings, the exertions and the
successes of the United States from the most perilous crises to the hour
of triumph." February 7, 1788.
[172] They merely sanctioned some territorial exchanges and restitutions
on both sides in the colonies, and stipulated that the British agent in
Dunkirk, who had been expelled at the beginning of the war, would not
return.
[173] March 29, 1783.
[174] Princeton, October 12, 1783. He started for that journey the
following autumn.
[175] September 10, 1791.
[176] Mount Vernon, April 4, 1784.
[177] December 8, 1784. Bayard Tuckerman, _Lafayette_, 1889, I, 165.
[178] July 25, 1785.
[179] "Excellence, Vos vertus civiles et vos talents militaires ont
donné à votre patrie la liberté et le bonheur; mais leur influence sur
celui du globe entier est encore préférable à mes yeux. C'est à ce grand
but que tend tout homme qui se sent digne d'arriver a l'immortalité,"
etc. May 28, 1789. Papers of the Continental Congress, LXXVIII, 759,
Library of Congress.
[180] June 22, 1784. _Jean Antoine Houdon_, by C.H. Hart and Ed. Biddle,
Philadelphia, 1911, p. 182.
[181] _Ibid._, p. 189. Peale's full-length portrait, with "a perspective
view of York and Gloucester, and the surrender of the British army,"
price thirty guineas, reached Paris in April, 1785, and has since
disappeared.
[182] July 10, 1785. _Ibid._, p. 191.
[183] Above, p. 12.
[184] Amsterdam, 1783. The author is strongly anti-English and is
indignant at the "guilty Anglomania" still existing in France.
[185] In the _Mercure de France_, 1785, prefacing a review of
Crèvecoeur's _Letters from an American Farmer_, and reproduced at the
beginning of the French edition of the _Letters_, 1787.
[186] _Observations sur le gouvernement et les loix des Etats Unis
d'Amérique_, Amsterdam, 1784, 12mo; in the form of letters to John
Adams. The Constitutions under discussion are those of the original
States. "Tandis," says Mably, "que presque toutes les nations de
l'Europe ignorent les principes constitutifs de la société et ne
regardent les citoyens que comme les bestiaux d'une ferme qu'on gouverne
pour l'avantage particulier du propriétaire, on est étonné, on est
édifié que vos treize Républiques ayent connu à la fois la dignité de
l'homme et soient allé puiser dans les sources de la plus sage
philosophie les principes humains par lesquels elles veulent se
gouverner." (P. 2.)
[187] Wanting, on his return to America, to make Washington's
acquaintance, Franklin's own grandson called similarly provided.
Lafayette to Washington, warmly praising the young man, July 14, 1785.
_Mémoires, correspondance et manuscrits du Général Lafayette, publiés
par sa Famille_, Brussels, 1837, I, 201.
[188] May 25, 1788. J.P. Brissot, _Correspondance et Papiers_, ed.
Perroud, Paris, 1912, p. 192.
[189] 1787. Text of the reports of the sittings. _Ibid._, pp. 105 ff.
[190] _Ibid._, pp. 114, 116, 126, 127, 136.
[191] "Under that name of liberty the Romans, as well as the Greeks,
pictured to themselves a state where no one was subject save to the law,
and where law was more powerful than men." (Bossuet.)
[192] _Nouveau Voyage dans les Etats Unis de l'Amérique Septentrionale_,
Paris, 3 vols., April, 1791, but begun to be printed, as shown by a note
to the preface, in the spring of 1790. The work greatly helped to make
America better and very favorably known in Europe, for it was translated
into English, German, and Dutch. While Brissot was returning to France
(January, 1789), his brother-in-law, François Dupont, was sailing for
the United States, to settle there among free men and, scarcely landed,
was writing to a Swiss friend of his, Jeanneret, who lived in Berlin, of
his delight at having left "a small continent like that of Europe,
partitioned among a quantity of petty sovereigns bent upon capturing
each other's possessions, causing their subjects to slaughter one
another, in ceaseless mutual fear, busy tightening their peoples' chains
and impoverishing them--and I am now on a continent which reaches from
pole to pole, with every kind of climate and of productions, among an
independent nation which is now devising for itself, in the midst of
peace, the wisest of governments. We are not governed here by a foolish
or despotic sovereign.... Farmers, craftsmen, merchants, and
manufacturers are encouraged and honored; they are the true nobles....
Between the man who sells his labor and the one who buys it the
agreement is between equals. The French are, however, very popular in
this country." Brissot, _Correspondance_ ed. Perroud, pp. 218, 219.
[193] _Mémoires du [Chevalier de Pontgibaud] Comte de Moré_, 1827, pp.
105, 132. Writing at that date, Lafayette's former companion thought
that monarchy had been re-established in France forever.
[194] January 1, 1788.
[195] New York, April 29, 1790.
[196] June 18, 1788.
[197] March 17, 1790; August 11, 1790. The key is the one which gave
access to the main entrance; those at the Carnavalet Museum in Paris
opened the several towers.
[198] To this remarkable forecast of the Terror, and of the ruin of such
great hopes, Jared Sparks, in his edition of the _Writings_, caused
Washington to add a prophecy of Napoleon's rule, described as a
"higher-toned despotism than the one which existed before." But this is
one of the embellishments which Sparks, who prophesied _à coup sûr_,
since he wrote after the events, thought he was free to introduce in the
great man's letters.
[199] Paris, May 12, 1787. Washington papers, Library of Congress.
[200] Calais, April 3, 1789.
[201] Paris, July 31, 1789.
[202] "Rochambeau near Vendôme," April 11, 1790.
[203] Paris, May 12, 1787.
[204] Ternant to Montmorin, Philadelphia, March 13, 1792.
_Correspondence of the French Ministers_, ed. Turner, Washington, 1904.
[205] July 28, 1792.
[206] Philadelphia, May 18, 1793. _Correspondence of the French
Ministers in the United States_, ed. Turner, Washington, 1904, p. 214.
[207] May 31, June 19, 1793. _Ibid._, pp. 216, 217.
[208] June 19, 1793. _Ibid._, p. 230.
[209] October 11, 1793. _Ibid._, p. 287.
[210] Washington to Alexander Hamilton, July 29, 1795.
[211] To Jefferson, June 6, 1796.
[212] To Oliver Wolcott, May 15, 1797.
[213] Mount Vernon, May 29, 1797.
[214] To T. Pickering, August 29, 1797.
[215] "_Nulli flebilior quam mihi_," wrote Lafayette, in learning the
news, to Crèvecoeur, who had just dedicated to Washington his _Voyage
dans la haute Pennsylvanie_, adorned, by way of frontispiece, with a
portrait of Washington, "gravé d'après le camée peint par Madame Bréhan,
à New York, en 1789." Crèvecoeur wanted to offer a copy of his book to
Bonaparte. "Send it," a friend of his who knew the young general told
him; "it is a right you have as an associate member of the Institute;
add a letter of two or three lines, mentioning in it the name of
Washington." _St. John de Crèvecoeur_, by Robert de Crèvecoeur, 1883, p.
399.
[216] "Eloge funèbre de Washington, prononcé dans le temple de Mars
(Hôtel des Invalides) le 20 pluviose, an VIII (8 février, 1800)," in
_OEuvres de M. de Fontanes, recueillies pour la première fois_, Paris,
1839, 2 vols., II, 147.
[217] Lafayette's journeys to America.
[218] An exact justification of Lacretelle's prediction; above, p. 94.
[219] _Histoire des Etats Unis_, 3 vols.; preface dated 1855; the
lectures had been delivered in 1849. Washington is the hero of the work,
which is carried on only to 1789.
[220] _Washington, libérateur de l'Amérique_, 1882, often reprinted,
dedicated: "A la mémoire de Lazare Hoche, le soldat citoyen, qui aurait
été notre Washington s'il eût vécu."
[221] August 1, 1786.
[222] "It is estimated that there are more small holdings of land in
France than in Germany, England, and Austria combined." _Report of the
[U.S.] Commissioner of Education_, 1913, p. 714.
[223] To Richard H. Lee, December 14, 1784. On French exertions in that
line, Consul-General Skinner wrote: "If correspondents could penetrate,
as the writer has done, the almost inaccessible mountain villages of
this country, and there discover the enthusiastic French forester at
work, applying scientific methods to a work which can not come to
complete fruition before two or three hundred years, they would retire
full of admiration and surprise and carry the lesson back to the United
States." _Daily Consular Reports_, November 2, 1907.
[224] "The story of French success in the exploration, the civilization,
the administration, and the exploitation of Africa, is one of the wonder
tales of history. That she has relied on the resources of science rather
than those of militarism makes her achievement the more remarkable....
Look at Senegambia as it is now under French rule.... Contrast the
modernized Dahomey of to-day with its railways, schools, and hospitals
with the blood-soaked country of the early sixties; remember that
Algeria has doubled in population since [the time of] the last Dey--and
you will have a bird's-eye view, as it were, of what the French have
accomplished in the colonizing field." E. Alexander Powell, _The Last
Frontier_, New York, 1912, p. 25. Concerning the Arabs under French
rule, Edgar A. Forbes writes: "The conquered race may thank the stars
that its destiny rests in a hand that seldom wears the rough gauntlet."
_The Land of the White Helmet_, New York, 1910, p. 94.
[225] To Lafayette, Aug. 15, 1786. Cf. below, p. 347. Same views in
Franklin, who had written to his friend David Hartley, one of the
British plenipotentiaries for the peace: "What would you think of a
proposition, if I should make it, of a family compact between England,
France, and America?... What repeated follies are those repeated wars!
You do not want to conquer and govern one another. Why, then, should you
continually be employed in injuring and destroying one another?" Passy,
Oct. 16, 1783.
[226] June 15, 1782.