it, and Washington heard that the fleet had gone to the Southern States, which he learned without regret, as he was apprehensive as to the condition of affairs in that region.  Again, in the autumn, it was reported that the fleet was once more upon the northern coast.  Washington at once sent officers to be on the lookout at the most likely points, and he wrote elaborately to D’Estaing, setting forth with wonderful perspicuity the incidents of the past, the condition of the present, and the probabilities of the future.  He was willing to do anything, or plan anything, provided his allies would join with him.  The jealousy so habitual in humanity, which is afraid that some one else may get the glory of a common success, was unknown to Washington, and if he could but drive the British from America, and establish American independence, he was perfectly willing that the glory should take care of itself.  But all his wisdom in dealing with the allies was, for the moment, vain.  While he was planning for a great stroke, and calling out the militia of New England, D’Estaing was making ready to relieve Georgia, and a few days after Washington wrote his second letter, the French and Americans assaulted the British works at Savannah, and were repulsed with heavy losses.  Then D’Estaing sailed away again, and the second effort of France to aid England’s revolted colonies came to an end.  Their presence had had a good moral effect, and the dread of D’Estaing’s return had caused Clinton to withdraw from Newport and concentrate in New York.  This was all that was actually accomplished, and there was nothing for it but to await still another trial and a more convenient season.

With all his courtesy and consideration, with all his readiness to fall in with the wishes and schemes of the French, it must not be supposed that Washington ever went an inch too far in this direction.  He valued the French alliance, and proposed to use it to great purpose, but he was not in the least dazzled or blinded by it.  Even in the earliest glow of excitement and hope produced by D’Estaing’s arrival, Washington took occasion to draw once more the distinction between a valuable alliance and volunteer adventurers, and to remonstrate again with Congress about their reckless profusion in dealing with foreign officers.  To Gouverneur Morris he wrote on July 24, 1778:  “The lavish manner in which rank has hitherto been bestowed on these gentlemen will certainly be productive of one or the other of these two evils:  either to make it despicable in the eyes of Europe, or become the means of pouring them in upon us like a torrent and adding to our present burden.  But it is neither the expense nor the trouble of them that I most dread.  There is an evil more extensive in its nature, and fatal in its consequences, to be apprehended, and that is the driving of all our own officers out of the service, and throwing not only our army, but our military councils, entirely into the hands of foreigners....  Baron Steuben,