Well, it is useless to remark that Washington would probably have ended with equal failure, had his country not met that foreign aid for which they honourably _begged_. It is useless to remark that he would undoubtedly have failed, if after the glorious battle of Yorktown he had met a fresh enemy of more than two hundred thousand men, such as we met, and had been forsaken in that new struggle by all the world. It is useless to remark that success should not be the only test of virtue on earth, and fortune should not change the devotion of a patriot into an outrage and a crime; and particularly not, when success is only torn out of the hands of patriotism by foreign violence, and by the most sacrilegious infraction of the common laws of all humanity. All this is useless to say. I must bear many things--must bear even malignity--but can bear it more easily, because against the insult of some who plead the cause of despots in your republic, I have for consolation the tranquillity of my conscience, the love of my countrymen, the approbation of generous friends, and the sympathy of millions in that very land where I meet the title of an "_imported rebel_." I was saying, sir, that I yield to no man on earth in reverence to the memory of the immortal WASHINGTON! Indeed, I consider it not inconsistent with this reverence to say: Never let past ages bind the life of future;--let no man's wisdom be _Koran_ to you, dooming progress to stagnation, and judgment to the meagre task of a mere rehearsing memory. Thus I would speak, should even that which I advocate, be contrary to what Washington taught--even then I would appeal from the thoughts of a man, to the spirit of advanced mankind, and from the eighteenth century to the present age. But fortunately I am not in that necessity; what I advocate is not only not in contradiction, but in strict harmony with Washington's principles, so much so that I have nothing else to wish than that Washington's doctrine should be quoted fairly as a system, and not by picking out single words, and concealing that which gives the interpretation to these words. Indeed I can wish nothing more than that the _principles_ of Washington should be followed. And I may also be permitted to say, that not every word of Washington is a principle, and that what he recommended as a policy according to the exigencies of his time, he never intended to recommend as a rule for ever to be followed even in such circumstances which he, with all his wisdom, could neither foresee nor imagine. And I may be perhaps permitted to wish the people of the United States should take for a truth, even in respect to the writings of Washington, what we are taught by the ministers of the Gospel in respect to the Holy Scriptures--that, by the discretion of private judgment, a distinction must be made between what is essential and what is not, between what is substantial and what is accidental, between what is a principle and what is but a history.