"Born, sir (said he) in a land of liberty; _having_ early learned its value; _having_ engaged in a perilous conflict to defend it; _having_, in a word, devoted the best years of my life to secure its permanent establishment in my own country; _my_ anxious recollections, my sympathetic feelings, and _my_ best wishes are irresistibly excited, whenever, in any country, I see an oppressed people unfurl the banner of freedom." Mr. Washington, having expended so many fine phrases upon himself, was obliged to invent a new one for the French, and he calls them "wonderful people!" The coalesced powers acknowledged as much. It is laughable to hear Mr. Washington talk of his _sympathetic feelings_, who has always been remarked, even among his friends, for not having any. He has, however, given no proofs of any to me. As to the pompous encomiums he so liberally pays to himself, on the score of the American revolution, the reality of them may be questioned; and since he has forced them so much into notice, it is fair to examine his pretensions. A stranger might be led to suppose, from the egotism with which Mr. Washington speaks, that himself, and himself only, had generated, conducted, compleated, and established the revolution: In fine, that it was all his own doing. In the first place, as to the political part, he had no share in it; and, therefore, the whole of _that_ is out of the question with respect to him. There remains, then, only the military part; and it would have been prudent in Mr. Washington not to have awakened enquiry upon that subject. Fame then was cheap; he enjoyed it cheaply; and nobody was disposed to take away the laurels that, whether they were _acquired_ or not, had been _given_. Mr. Washington's merit consisted in constancy. But constancy was the common virtue of the revolution. Who was there that was inconstant? I know but of one military defection, that of Arnold; and I know of no political defection, among those who made themselves eminent when the revolution was formed by the declaration of independence. Even Silas Deane, though he attempted to defraud, did not betray.(1) 1 This generous judgment by Deane's old adversary has become questionable under recent investigations.--_Editor._. But when we speak of military character, something more is to be understood than constancy; and something more _ought_ to be understood than the Fabian system of _doing nothing_. The _nothing_ part can be done by any body. Old Mrs. Thompson, the housekeeper of head quarters, (who threatened to make the sun and the wind shine through Rivington of New York,) 'could have done it as well as Mr. Washington. Deborah would have been as good as Barak.