Even in 1812 the national existence was menaced,
but the danger would have proved fatal if it had come twenty years
earlier, with parties divided by their sympathies with contending
foreign nations. It was for the sake of the Union that Washington was
so patient with France, and faced so quietly the storm of indignation
aroused by the Jay treaty.
In his whole foreign policy, which was so peculiarly his own, the
American spirit was his pole star; and of all the attacks made upon
him, the only one which really tried his soul was the accusation that
he was influenced by foreign predilections. The blind injustice, which
would not comprehend that his one purpose was to be American and to
make the people and the government American, touched him more deeply
than anything else. As party strife grew keener over the issues raised
by the war between France and England, and as French politics and
French ideas became more popular, his feelings found more frequent
utterance, and it is interesting to see how this man, who, we are now
told, was an English country gentleman, wrote and felt on this matter
in very trying times. Let us remember, as we listen to him now in his
own defense, that he was an extremely honest man, silent for the most
part in doing his work, but when he spoke meaning every word he said,
and saying exactly what he meant. This was the way in which he
wrote to Patrick Henry in October, 1795, when he offered him the
secretaryship of State:--
"My ardent desire is, and my aim has been as far as depended upon the
executive department, to comply strictly with all our engagements,
foreign and domestic; but to keep the United States free from
political connection with every other country, to see them independent
of all and under the influence of none.
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