From the date of his commission, through all his acts and correspondence, it has been evident, that he has been perfectly frank and consistent in his assignments of officers or troops, either to position or command; and his judgment of men and measures has had constant verification in realized experience. It was very natural for European monarchs, including Louis XVI., to behold in the very preëminent and assertive force of Washington’s character much of the “one-man power” which was the basis of their own asserted prerogative; and there were astute and ambitious statesmen and soldiers of the Old World who hoped that a new empire, and a new personal dynasty, would yet arise in the western world, to be their associated ally against Great Britain herself. They did not measure the American Revolution by right standards; because they could not conceive, nor comprehend the American conception of, a “sovereign people.” There was one foreign soldier in the American army, and of royal stock, who must have clung to Washington and his cause, with most ardent passion as well as obedient reverence. Nothing of sacrifice, exposure, or vile jealousy, whether in closet, camp, or field, amid winter’s keenest blasts or summer’s scorching fires, was beyond the life and soul experience of Thaddeus Kosciusko. His name, and that of Pulaski, so dear to Washington, and so true to him, should be ever dear to the American; and in the history of their country’s fall, there should ever be cherished a monumental recognition of ancient Poland and the Pole. It was one of the most striking characteristics of Washington’s military life that he recognized and trusted so many of these heroic men whose lives had been nursed and developed in the cause of liberty and country. Such men as these beheld in Washington a superhuman regard for _man, as man_; and the youthful Lafayette almost worshipped, while he obeyed, until his entire soul was penetrated by the spirit and controlled by the example of his beloved Chief. Some of these, who survived until the opening of the year 1781, were able to realize that its successive months, however blessed in their ultimate fruition, were months in which Washington passed under heavier yokes and through tougher ordeals than were those of Valley Forge or Yorktown. For the first time during the Revolutionary struggle, the American citizens who did the fighting might well compare their situation under the guardianship of the American Congress, with that of Colonial obligation under the British Parliament and the British crown.