an endeavor for which the latter was "exceedingly obliged." When
Paine published his "Rights of Man" he dedicated it to Washington, with an
inscription dwelling on his "exemplary virtue" and his "benevolence;"
while in the body of the work he asserted that no monarch of Europe had a
character to compare with Washington's, which was such as to "put all
those men called kings to shame." Shortly after this, however, Washington
refused to appoint him Postmaster-General; and still later, when Paine had
involved himself with the French, the President, after consideration,
decided that governmental interference was not proper. Enraged by these
two acts, Paine published a pamphlet in which he charged Washington with
"encouraging and swallowing the greatest adulation," with being "the
patron of fraud," with a "mean and servile submission to the insults of
one nation, treachery and ingratitude to another," with "falsehood,"
"ingratitude," and "pusillanimity;" and finally, after alleging that the
General had not "served America with more disinterestedness or greater
zeal, than myself, and I know not if with better effect," Paine closed his
attack by the assertion, "and as to you, sir, _treacherous in private
friendship_, and a _hypocrite_ in public life, the world will be puzzled
to decide, whether you are an _apostate_ or an _impostor_; whether you
have _abandoned good principles_, or whether _you ever had any?_"

Washington never, in any situation, took public notice of these attacks,
and he wrote of a possible one, "I am gliding down the stream of life, and
wish, as is natural, that my remaining days may be undisturbed and
tranquil; and, conscious of my integrity, I would willingly hope, that
nothing would occur tending to give me anxiety; but should anything
present itself in this or any other publication, I shall never undertake
the painful task of recrimination, nor do I know that I should even enter
upon my justification." To a friend he said, "my temper leads me to peace
and harmony with all men; and it is peculiarly my wish to avoid any feuds
or dissentions with those who are embarked in the same great national
interest with myself; as every difference of this kind must in its
consequence be very injurious."

XI

SOLDIER

"My inclinations," wrote Washington at twenty-three, "are strongly bent to
arms," and the tendency was a natural one, coming not merely from his
Indian-fighting great-grandfather, but from hi