With Americans of Past and Present Days - Jusserand Jean Jules - Страница 36
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By the beginning of 1783 peace and American independence had been practically secured. Washington is found duly solemnizing the anniversary of the French alliance which had rendered those events possible. "I intended," he says to General Greene, "to have wrote you a long letter on sundry matters, but Major Burnet popped in unexpectedly at a time when I was preparing for the celebration of the day, and was just going to a review of the troops, previous to the feu de joie." The orders issued by him on the occasion read thus: "The commander-in-chief, who wishes on the return of this auspicious day to diffuse the feelings of gratitude and pleasure as extensively as possible, is pleased to grant a full and free pardon to all military prisoners now in confinement."[170]
The orderly book used by Washington is still in existence, and from it we learn that the parole given for the day was "America and France," and the countersigns, "United," "Forever."
III
No less characteristic of Washington's sentiments thereafter is the correspondence continued by him with a number of French people when the war was a thing of the past and no further help could be needed. With Rochambeau, with d'Estaing, Chastellux, La Luzerne, then ambassador in London, whom he had seen with keen regret leave the United States,[171] and, of course, with Lafayette, he kept up a correspondence which affords most pleasant reading: a friend writes to his friends and tells them of his feelings and expectations. The attitude of France at the peace is the subject of a noble letter to La Luzerne: "The part your Excellency has acted in the cause of America and the great and benevolent share you have taken in the establishment of her independence are deeply impressed on my mind, and will not be effaced from my remembrance, or that of the citizens of America.... The articles of the general treaty do not appear so favorable to France, in point of territorial acquisitions, as they do to the other Powers.[172] But the magnanimous and disinterested scale of action which that great nation has exhibited to the world during this war, and at the conclusion of peace, will insure to the King and nation that reputation which will be of more consequence to them than every other consideration."[173]
Washington keeps his French friends aware of the progress of the country and of his hopes for its greatness; he wants to visit the United States to the limit of what was then the extreme West. "Prompted by these actual observations," he writes to Chastellux, "I could not help taking a more contemplative and extensive view of the vast inland navigation of these United States from maps and the information of others, and could not but be struck with the immense diffusion and importance of it, and with the goodness of that Providence which has dealt her favors to us with so profuse a hand. Would to God we may have wisdom enough to improve them. I shall not rest contented till I have explored the Western country and traversed those lines, or great part of them, which have given new bounds to a new empire."[174] To La Luzerne he wrote some years later: "The United States are making great progress toward national happiness, and if it is not attained here in as high a degree as human nature will admit of, I think we may then conclude that political happiness is unattainable."[175]
That rest for which Washington had been longing ("I pant for retirement," he had written to Cary in June, 1782) had been granted him by the end of 1783, when, the definitive treaty having been concluded, he had resigned his commission in the hands of Congress, at Annapolis on the 23d of December, "bidding an affectionate farewell," he said, "to this august body under whose orders I have so long acted." It was at first difficult for him to enjoy, in his dear Mount Vernon, that so-much-desired quiet life, and "to get the better," he wrote to General Knox, "of my custom of ruminating as soon as I waked in the morning on the business of the ensuing day, and of my surprise at finding, after revolving many things in my mind, that I was no longer a public man, nor had anything to do with public transactions." But he soon came to the thorough enjoyment of his peaceful surroundings and happy family life, writing about his new existence to Rochambeau and Lafayette, not without a tinge of melancholy, as from one whose life's work is a thing of the past. To the man of all men for whom his manly heart felt most tenderness, to Lafayette, it is that he wrote the beautiful letter of February 1, 1784, unaware that his rest was only temporary, and that he was to become the first President of the country he had given life to:
"At length, my dear marquis, I am become a private citizen on the banks of the Potomac, and under the shadow of my own vine and my own fig-tree, free from the bustle of a camp and the busy scenes of public life, I am solacing myself with those tranquil enjoyments of which the soldier who is ever in pursuit of fame, the statesman whose watchful days and sleepless nights are spent in devising schemes to promote the welfare of his own, perhaps the ruin of other countries, as if the globe was insufficient for us all ... can have very little conception. I have not only retired from all public employments, but I am retiring within myself, and shall be able to view the solitary walk of private life with heartfelt satisfaction. Envious of none, I am determined to be pleased with all; and this, my dear friend, being the order for my march, I will move gently down the stream of life until I sleep with my fathers."
With Lafayette the great man unbends, he becomes affectionate, poetical as in the passage just quoted, sometimes even jocose, which was so rare with him. He wants Madame de Lafayette to come to America and visit Mount Vernon, saying to her: "Your own doors do not open to you with more readiness than mine would."[176] She never came, but her husband returned for a few months, the same year, and this was the first of his two triumphant journeys to the freed United States; it was then that he parted at Annapolis from his chief, never to see him again; a very sad parting for both, Washington sending him from Mount Vernon, in time for it to reach him before he sailed, the most touching, perhaps, of all his letters:
"In the moment of our separation, upon the road as I travelled, and every hour since, I have felt all that love, respect, and attachment for you which length of years, close connection, and your merits have inspired me. I often asked myself, when our carriages separated, whether that was the last sight I should ever have of you. And though I wished to say, no, my fears answered, yes. I called to mind the days of my youth and found they had long since fled, to return no more; that I was now descending the hill I had been fifty-two years climbing, and that, though I was blessed with a good constitution, I was of a short-lived family and might soon expect to be entombed in the mansion of my fathers. These thoughts darkened the shades and gave a gloom to the picture, and consequently to my prospect of seeing you again. But I will not repine; I have had my day."[177]
A portrait of Lafayette, his wife, and children was received the following year by Washington, and caused him great pleasure; this, he said to the sender, "I consider as an invaluable present and shall give it the best place in my house."[178]
He continued to the end to be Lafayette's confidant and adviser. In one of his most notable letters, passing judgment on the great warrior Frederick II and on his brother, Prince Henry, whom Lafayette had recently visited, he clearly outlined what should be his correspondent's ideal as to the government of men. "To be received," he says, "by the King of Prussia and Prince Henry, his brother (who as soldiers and politicians yield the palm to none), with such marks of attention and distinction, was as indicative of their discernment as it is of your merit.... It is to be lamented, however, that great characters are seldom without a blot. That one man should tyrannize over millions will always be a shade in that of the former, while it is pleasing to hear that due regards to the rights of mankind is characteristic of the latter."
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