d,
and Gouverneur Morris, studying the situation on the spot with keen
and practical observation, soon apprehended the truth, while others
more or less quickly followed in their wake. But Washington, whom no
one ever credited with divination, and who never crossed the Atlantic,
saw the realities of the thing sooner, and looked more deeply into the
future than anybody else. No man lived more loyal than he, or more
true to the duties of gratitude; but he looked upon the world of facts
with vision never dimmed nor dazzled, and watched in silence, while
others slept and dreamed. Let us follow his letters for a moment. In
October, 1789, in the first flush of hope and sympathy, he wrote to
Morris: "The revolution which has been effected in France is of so
wonderful a nature that the mind can hardly realize the fact. If it
ends as our last accounts to the first of August predict, that nation
will be the most powerful and happy in Europe; but I fear though it
has gone triumphantly through the first paroxysm, it is not the last
it has to encounter before matters are finally settled. In a word,
the revolution is of too great magnitude to be effected in so short
a space, and with the loss of so little blood.... To forbear running
from one extreme to another is no easy matter; and should this be the
case, rocks and shelves, not visible at present, may wreck the vessel,
and give a higher-toned despotism than the one which existed before."

Seven years afterwards, reviewing his opinions in respect to France,
he wrote to Pickering: "My conduct in public and private life, as it
relates to the important struggle in which the latter is engaged, has
been uniform from the commencement of it, and may be summed up in a
few words: that I have always wished well to the French revolution;
that I have always given it as my decided opinion that no nation had a
right to intermeddle in the internal concerns of another; that every
one had a right to form and adopt whatever government they liked best
to live under themselves; and that if this country could, consistently
with its engagements, maintain a strict neutrality and thereby
preserve peace, it was bound to do so by motives of policy, interest,
and every other consideration that ought to actuate a people situated
as we are, already deeply in debt, and in a convalescent state from
the struggle we have been engaged in ourselves."

Thus prepared, Washington waited and saw his cautious predictions