the president for his country,
together with the letter of the French Committee of Safety to the
Congress, at Washington's residence, in the presence of a large number
of distinguished characters. Adet, in a speech on the occasion,
presented in glowing colors the position of France as the great
dispensatory of free opinions in the old world--as "struggling not only
for her own liberty, but for that of the human race. Assimilated to, or
rather identified with, free people by the form of her government," he
said, "she saw in them only friends and brothers. Long accustomed to
regard the American people as her most faithful allies, she sought to
draw closer the ties already formed in the fields of America, under the
auspices of victory, over the ruins of tyranny."

A reply to this address, under the peculiar circumstances in which
Washington was placed, required the exercise of much discretion. It was
necessary to express generous feelings adapted to the occasion, without
the utterance of sentiments, concerning the powers then at war,
inconsistent with the position of neutrality which the United States had
assumed. The president accordingly said:--

"Born, sir, in a land of liberty; having early learned its value;
having engaged in a perilous conflict to defend it; having, in a
word, devoted the best years of my life to its permanent
establishment in my own country, my anxious recollections, my
sympathetic feelings, and my best wishes, are irresistibly
attracted wheresoever, in any country, I see an oppressed nation
unfurl the banners of freedom. But, above all, the events of the
French Revolution have produced the deepest solicitude, as well as
the highest admiration. To call your nation brave, were to
pronounce but common praise. Wonderful people! Ages to come will
read with astonishment the history of your brilliant exploits. I
rejoice that the period of your toils and your immense sacrifices
is approaching. I rejoice that the interesting revolutionary
movements of so many years have issued in the formation of a
constitution,[90] designed to give permanency to the great object
for which you have contended. I rejoice that liberty, which you
have so long embraced with enthusiasm--liberty, of which you have
been the invincible defenders--now finds an asylum in the bosom of
a regularly organized government; a government which, bei