[2] As early as 1784 Lord Sheffield said in Parliament: "It is not probable that the American States will have a very free trade in the Mediterranean. It will not be to the interest of any of the great maritime powers to protect them from the Barbary States. If they know their interests they will not encourage American carriers." * * * The scenes which attended the close of Washington's public career were some compensation to that ever-illustrious man for the wounds inflicted during his administration by reckless and venomous partisanship. No President of the United States was ever more fiercely and bitterly assailed than Washington. His enemies even went so far as to doom him in caricature to the fate of Louis XVI. He was accused of monarchical designs, and had to confront treachery in his Cabinet and scurrilous slanders in the public press. Yet throughout all he bore himself with patience, and never swerved from the course which he deemed best for the public weal. It should not be supposed that he was indifferent to the arrows of malice and of falsehood. On the contrary, he was extremely sensitive to them; but he never permitted himself, in public at least, to be carried away by his feelings, and no matter how strong his sentiments on any subject, his sense of justice was always supreme. In his agony upon the news of St. Clair's defeat, he denounced that general as worse than a murderer for having suffered his army to be taken by surprise; but when the burst of passion was over he added: "General St. Clair shall have justice. I will receive him without displeasure; I will hear him without prejudice." And Washington kept his word. Far abler pens than mine have dealt with the character of the Father of our Republic, but a few plain and original expressions on a subject never wearisome to Americans may not be out of place. Washington's chief characteristics were fortitude, the sense of justice of which I have spoken, and the ability to grasp conditions and seize upon opportunities. He was a thoroughly practical man, a strategist by instinct, fearless but not rash, possessing an impetuous temper kept within careful control, and unleashed only when, as at the battle of Monmouth, there was prudence in its vehemence. He was an excellent judge of men. The officers who owed their advancement to Washington seldom disappointed and often exceeded expectations. He was above the petty jealousy, so conspicuous in our late civil war, that would permit another general to be defeated in order to shine by contrast. He was devoted to the cause more than to winning personal reputation, and the effect of his unselfishness was that the cause triumphed with his name fixed in history as that of its leader and champion.