ation, with all his readiness to
fall in with the wishes and schemes of the French, it must not be
supposed that Washington ever went an inch too far in this direction.
He valued the French alliance, and proposed to use it to great
purpose, but he was not in the least dazzled or blinded by it. Even
in the earliest glow of excitement and hope produced by D'Estaing's
arrival, Washington took occasion to draw once more the distinction
between a valuable alliance and volunteer adventurers, and to
remonstrate again with Congress about their reckless profusion in
dealing with foreign officers. To Gouverneur Morris he wrote on July
24, 1778: "The lavish manner in which rank has hitherto been bestowed
on these gentlemen will certainly be productive of one or the other of
these two evils: either to make it despicable in the eyes of Europe,
or become the means of pouring them in upon us like a torrent and
adding to our present burden. But it is neither the expense nor the
trouble of them that I most dread. There is an evil more extensive in
its nature, and fatal in its consequences, to be apprehended, and
that is the driving of all our own officers out of the service, and
throwing not only our army, but our military councils, entirely into
the hands of foreigners.... Baron Steuben, I now find, is also wanting
to quit his inspectorship for a command in the line. This will be
productive of much discontent to the brigadiers. In a word, although I
think the baron an excellent officer, I do most devoutly wish that we
had not a single foreigner among us except the Marquis de Lafayette,
who acts upon very different principles from those which govern the
rest." A few days later he said, on the same theme, to the president
of Congress: "I trust you think me so much a citizen of the world as
to believe I am not easily warped or led away by attachments merely
local and American; yet I confess I am not entirely without them, nor
does it appear to me that they are unwarrantable, if confined within
proper limits. Fewer promotions in the foreign line would have been
productive of more harmony, and made our warfare more agreeable to all
parties." Again, he said of Steuben: "I regret that there should be a
necessity that his services should be lost to the army; at the same
time I think it my duty explicitly to observe to Congress that his
desire of having an actual and permanent command in the line cannot be
complied with without wounding the feel