I received your favor of April the 8th, by Colonel Harrison, The subject
of it is interesting, and, so far as you have stood connected with it,
has been matter of anxiety to me; because, whatever may be the ultimate
fate of the institution of the Cincinnati, as, in its course, it draws
to it some degree of disapprobation, I have wished to see you standing
on ground separated from it, and that the character which will be handed
to future ages at the head of our Revolution, may, in no instance, be
compromitted in subordinate altercations. The subject has been at the
point of my pen in every letter I have written to you, but has been
still restrained by the reflection that you had among your friends more
able counsellors, and, in yourself, one abler than them all. Your letter
has now rendered a duty what was before a desire, and I cannot better
merit your confidence than by a full and free communication of facts
and sentiments, as far as they have come within my observation. When the
army was about to be disbanded, and the officers to take final leave,
perhaps never again to meet, it was natural for men who had accompanied
each other through so many scenes of hardship, of difficulty and danger,
who, in a variety of instances, must have been rendered mutually dear
by those aids and good offices, to which their situations had given
occasion, it was natural, I say, for these to seize with fondness any
proposition which promised to bring them together again, at certain and
regular periods. And this, I take for granted, was the origin and object
of this institution: and I have no suspicion that they foresaw, much
less intended, those mischiefs which exist perhaps in the forebodings of
politicians only. I doubt, however, whether in its execution, it would
be found to answer the wishes of those who framed it, and to foster
those friendships it was intended to preserve. The members would be
brought together at their annual assemblies no longer to encounter a
common enemy, but to encounter one another in debate and sentiment.
For something, I suppose, is to be done at these meetings, and,
however unimportant, it will suffice to produce difference of opinion,
contradiction, and irritation. The way to make friends quarrel is to put
them in disputation under the public eye. An experience of near twenty
years has taught me, that few friendships stand this test, and that
public assemblies where every one is free to act and speak, are t