rstood,
was not very well pleased with the treaty, Washington said:--

"I persuade myself, sir, it has not escaped your observation that
a crisis is approaching, that must, if it can not be arrested, soon
decide whether order and good government shall be preserved, or
anarchy and confusion ensue. I can most religiously aver, I have no
wish that is incompatible with the dignity, happiness, and true
interest of the people of this country. My ardent desire is, and my
aim has been, as far as depended upon the executive department, to
comply strictly with all our engagements, foreign and domestic; but
to keep the United States free from political connection with every
other country, to see them independent of all, and under the
influence of none. In a word, I want an _American_ character, that
the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for _ourselves_, and
not for others. This, in my judgment, is the only way to be
respected abroad and happy at home; and not, by becoming the
partisans of Great Britain or France, create dissentions, disturb
the public tranquillity, and destroy, perhaps for ever, the cement
which binds the Union."

After considerable delay, Colonel Pickering was transferred to the
department of state, and James M'Henry, of Maryland, was appointed
secretary of war. At the close of November, Charles Lee, of Virginia,
accepted the office of attorney-general, as the successor of Bradford,
and at the opening of Congress the cabinet was in working order, with
apparently harmonious elements.

It was during these political agitations that George Washington
Lafayette, a son of the marquis, arrived in the United States, to claim
an asylum at the hands of Washington. He could not have appeared at a
more inopportune moment; for political reasons rendered it inexpedient
for the president, as such, to receive him; and to place him in his
family might cause perplexities, connected with political affairs,
prejudicial to the public tranquillity.

We have already noticed the flight of Lafayette from France before the
fury of Jacobin fanaticism, and his incarceration in an Austrian
dungeon, while his family were left to be the sport of fortune. In that
dungeon the marquis was confined almost three years, in a cell three
paces broad and five and a half long, containing no other ornament than
two French verses which rhymed with the words "to