nent credit for
sincerity, and even to admit that his cause had justice. In his opinion
the other man's point of view could always be considered.

This broadness of mind often caused him to incur criticism, but it had
become so much his nature, and his courage was so great, that he would
not depart from it. He had been through the terrible war with the
French, and, even before he knew that he was half a Frenchman by blood,
he had gladly acknowledged the splendid qualities of the French, their
bravery and patience, and their logical minds. He always said during the
worst throes of their revolution that the French would emerge from it
greater than ever.

His position was similar in the Revolutionary War with the English.
While he cast in his lot with his own people, and suffered with them, he
invariably maintained that the English nation was sound at the core. He
had fought beside them in a great struggle and he knew how strong and
true they were, and when our own strife was over he was most eager for a
renewal of good relations with the English, always saying that the fact
that they had quarreled and parted did not keep them from being of the
same blood and family, and hence natural allies.

He consistently refused to hate an individual. He always insisted that
life was too busy to cherish a grudge or seek revenge. Bad acts
invariably punished themselves in the course of time. He was able to see
some good, a little at least, in everybody. Searching his mind in after
years, he could even find excuses for Adrian Van Zoon. He would say to
Willet that the man loved nothing but money, that perhaps he had been
born that way and could not help it, that he had made his attempts upon
him under the influence of what was the greatest of all temptations to
him, and that while he paid the slaver to carry him away he had not paid
him to kill him. As for Garay, he would say that he might have exceeded
orders. He would say the same about the shots the slaver had fired at
him at Albany.

This tolerance came partly from his own character, and partly from an
enormous experience of life in the raw in his young and formative years.
He knew how men were to a large extent the creatures of circumstances,
and on the individual in particular his judgments were always mild. He
had two favorite sayings:

"No man is as bad as he seems to his worst enemy."

"No man is as good as he seems to his best friend."

His own faults he knew perfectly