ance with
a foreign power was one thing, and sporadic military volunteers were
another. Washington had no narrow prejudices against foreigners,
for he was a man of broad and liberal mind, and no one was more
universally beloved and respected by the foreign officers than he; but
he was intensely American in his feelings, and he would not admit for
an instant that the American war for independence could be righteously
fought or honestly won by others than Americans. He was well aware
that foreign volunteers had a value and use of which he largely and
gratefully availed himself; but he was exasperated and alarmed by the
indiscriminate and lavish way in which Congress and our agents abroad
gave rank and office to them. "Hungry adventurers," he called them in
one letter, when driven beyond endurance by the endless annoyances
thus forced upon him; and so he pushed their pretensions aside,
and managed, on the whole, to keep them in their proper place. The
operation was delicate, difficult, and unpleasant, for it seemed to
savor of ingratitude. But Washington was never shaken for an instant
in his policy, and while he checked the danger, he showed in many
instances, like Lafayette and Steuben, that he could appreciate and
use all that was really valuable in the foreign contingent.

The service rendered by Washington in this matter has never been
justly understood or appreciated. If he had not taken this position,
and held it with an absolute firmness which bordered on harshness, we
should have found ourselves in a short time with an army of American
soldiers officered by foreigners, many of them mere mercenaries,
"hungry adventurers," from France, Poland or Hungary, from Germany,
Ireland or England. The result of such a combination would have been
disorganization and defeat. That members of Congress and some of our
representatives in Europe did not see the danger, and that they were
impressed by the foreign officers who came among them, was perfectly
natural. Men are the creatures of the time in which they live, and
take their color from the conditions which surround them, as the
chameleon does from the grass or leaves in which it hides. The rulers
and lawmakers of 1776 could not cast off their provincial awe of
the natives of England and Europe as they cast off their political
allegiance to the British king. The only wonder is that there should
have been even one man so great in mind and character that he could
rise at a sing