One of the most memorable and striking things done by the French Republic is the building of a vast colonial empire, giving access to undeveloped, sometimes, as in Dahomey, barbaric and sanguinary races, still indulging in human sacrifices. Washington has laid down the rule of what should be done with respect to primitive races. "The basis of our proceedings with the Indian natives," he wrote to Lafayette, "has been and shall be justice, during the period in which I have anything to do with the administration of this government. Our negotiations and transactions, though many of them are on a small scale as to the objects, ought to be governed by the immutable principles of equality." And addressing the Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore, John Carroll, he again said: "The most effectual means of securing the permanent attachment of our savage neighbors is to convince them that we are just."
There is nothing we are ourselves more sincerely convinced of than that such principles are the right ones and should prevail. That we did not lose sight of them in the building of our colonial empire its very vastness testifies; using opposite means, with so many other tasks to attend to, we should have failed. The number of people living under the French flag is about one hundred million now. Judging from the testimony of independent witnesses,[224] it seems that, on this, too, we have acted in accordance with the views of the former commander-in-chief, who had written to Lafayette on August 15, 1786: "Let me ask you, my dear marquis, in such an enlightened, in such a liberal age, how is it possible that the great maritime powers of Europe should submit to pay an annual tribute to the little piratical states of Barbary? Would to Heaven we had a navy able to reform those enemies to mankind or crush them into non-existence." The "reform" was begun by Decatur in 1815, and perfected by Bourmont in 1830.
On one point Washington was very positive; this leader of men, this warrior, this winner of battles, loathed war. He wanted, of course, his nation, as we want ours, never to be without a military academy (our West Point is called Saint-Cyr), and never to be without a solid, permanent army, for, as he said, in a speech to Congress in 1796: "However pacific the general policy of a nation may be, it ought never to be without an adequate stock of military knowledge for emergencies ... war might often depend not upon its own choice." Of this we are only too well aware.
There is scarcely, however, a question that oftener recurs under his pen in his letters to his French friends than the care with which wars should be avoided, and no hopes were more fondly cherished by him than that, some day, human quarrels might be settled otherwise than by bloodshed. To Rochambeau, who had informed him that war-clouds which had recently appeared in Europe were dissipated (soon, it is true, to return more threatening), he expressed, in 1786, his joy at what he considered a proof that mankind was becoming "more enlightened and more humanized." To his friend David Humphreys he had written from Mount Vernon, July 25, 1785: "My first wish is to see this plague to mankind (war) banished from off the earth, and the sons and daughters of this world employed in more pleasing and innocent amusements than in preparing implements and exercising them for the destruction of mankind. Rather than quarrel about territory, let the poor, the needy, the oppressed of the earth, and those who want land, resort to the fertile plains of our Western country, the second land of promise, and there dwell in peace, fulfilling the first and great commandment." His dream was of mankind one day "connected like one great family in fraternal ties."[225]
On this matter, of such paramount importance to all the world, and in spite of so much, so very much remaining to be done, we may, I hope, consider in France that our Republic would deserve the approval of the departed leader. We have indeed vied with the United States (and praise be rendered to empires and kingdoms who have played also the part of realms of good-will), in an effort to find better means than wars for the settlement of human quarrels. Success could not be expected at once, but it is something to have honestly, earnestly tried. The great man would have judged failures with indulgence, for he well knew how others' dispositions are to be taken into account. "In vain," he had said, "is it to expect that our aim is to be accomplished by fond wishes for peace."[226]
And at the present hour, when it seems to the author of these lines that, as he writes, his ears are filled with the sound of guns, wafted by the wind over the submarine-haunted ocean, what would be the feeling of our former commander if he saw what is taking place, and the stand made by the descendants of those soldiers intrusted years ago to his leadership? Perhaps he would think, as he did, when told by Lafayette of a recent visit to the battle-fields of Frederick II of Prussia: "To view the several fields of battle over which you passed could not, among other sensations, have failed to excite this thought: 'Here have fallen thousands of gallant spirits to satisfy the ambitions of their sovereign, or to support them perhaps in acts of oppression and injustice. Melancholy reflection! For what wise purpose does Providence permit this?'"
Perhaps—who knows?—considering the silent resolution, abnegation, and unanimity with which the whole people, from the day when war was declared on them by a relentless enemy, tried to uphold the cause of independence and liberalism in a world-wide conflict, the leader might be tempted to write once more in the pages of his private journal the three words he had written on May 1, 1781. Who knows? Of one thing we are sure, no approval could please us more than that of the commander-in-chief of former days.
FOOTNOTES
[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.