ings of a number of officers,
whose rank and merits give them every claim to attention; and that the
doing of it would be productive of much dissatisfaction and extensive
ill consequences."

Washington's resistance to the colonial deference for foreigners has
already been pointed out, but this second burst of opposition, coming
at this especial time, deserves renewed attention. The splendid fleet
and well-equipped troops of our ally were actually at our gates, and
everybody was in a paroxysm of perfectly natural gratitude. To the
colonial mind, steeped in colonial habits of thought, the foreigner at
this particular juncture appeared more than ever to be a splendid and
superior being. But he did not in the least confuse or sway the cool
judgment that guided the destinies of the Revolution. Let us consider
well the pregnant sentences just quoted, and the letters from which
they are taken. They deserve it, for they throw a strong light on a
side of Washington's mind and character too little appreciated. One
hears it said not infrequently, it has been argued even in print with
some solemnity, that Washington was, no doubt, a great man and rightly
a national hero, but that he was not an American. It will be necessary
to recur to this charge again and consider it at some length. It is
sufficient at this point to see how it tallies with his conduct in
a single matter, which was a very perfect test of the national and
American quality of the man. We can get at the truth by contrasting
him with his own contemporaries, the only fair comparison, for he was
a man and an American of his own time and not of the present day,
which is a point his critics overlook.

Where he differed from the men of his own time was in the fact that he
rose to a breadth and height of Americanism and of national feeling
which no other man of that day touched at all. Nothing is more intense
than the conservatism of mental habits, and although it requires now
an effort to realize it, it should not be forgotten that in every
habit of thought the inhabitants of the thirteen colonies were wholly
colonial. If this is properly appreciated we can understand the mental
breadth and vigor which enabled Washington to shake off at once all
past habits and become an independent leader of an independent
people. He felt to the very core of his being the need of national
self-respect and national dignity. To him, as the chief of the armies
and the head of the Revolutio