ion and superior training, without
being of the party of the people. Many gentlemen in America, beyond
dispute, are not of the popular side, but I am of opinion that they make
a fundamental mistake as _gentlemen_. They have permitted the vulgar
feelings generated by contracted associations and the insignificant
evils of a neighbourhood, to still within them the high feelings and
generous tendencies that only truly belong to the caste.

In France, the English feeling, modified by circumstances, is very
apparent, although it is not quite so much the fashion to lay stress on
mere morality. The struggle of selfishness and interests is less veiled
and mystified in France than on the other side of the Channel. But the
selfish principle, if anything, is more active; and few struggle hard
for others, without being suspected of base motives.

By looking back at the publications of the time, you will learn the
manner in which Washington was vituperated by his enemies, at the
commencement of the revolution. Graydon, in his "Memoirs of a Life spent
in Pennsylvania," mentions a discourse he held with a young English
officer, who evidently was well disposed, and wished to know the truth.
This gentleman had been taught to believe Washington an adventurer, who
had squandered the property of a young widow whom he had married, by
gambling and dissipation, and who was now ready to embark in any
desperate enterprise to redeem his fortune! This, then, was probably the
honest opinion the British army, in 1776, entertained of the man, whom
subsequent events have shown to have been uniformly actuated by the
noblest sentiments, and who, instead of being the adventurer
represented, is known to have put in jeopardy a large estate, through
disinterested devotion to the country, and the prevailing predominant
trait of whose character was an inflexible integrity of purpose. Now,
Lafayette is obnoxious to a great deal of similar vulgar feeling,
without being permitted, by circumstances, to render the purity of his
motives as manifest, as was the better fortune of his great model,
Washington. The unhandsome and abrupt manner in which he was dismissed
from the command of the National Guards, though probably a
peace-offering to the allies, was also intended to rob him of the credit
of a voluntary resignation.[9]--But, all this time, we are losing sight
of what is passing in the streets of Paris.

[Footnote 9: General Lafayette took the republican prof