Seven years afterwards, reviewing his opinions in respect to France, he wrote to Pickering:  “My conduct in public and private life, as it relates to the important struggle in which the latter is engaged, has been uniform from the commencement of it, and may be summed up in a few words:  that I have always wished well to the French revolution; that I have always given it as my decided opinion that no nation had a right to intermeddle in the internal concerns of another; that every one had a right to form and adopt whatever government they liked best to live under themselves; and that if this country could, consistently with its engagements, maintain a strict neutrality and thereby preserve peace, it was bound to do so by motives of policy, interest, and every other consideration that ought to actuate a people situated as we are, already deeply in debt, and in a convalescent state from the struggle we have been engaged in ourselves.”

Thus prepared, Washington waited and saw his cautious predictions verified, and the revolution rush headlong from one extreme to another.  He also saw the flames spread beyond the borders of France, changing and dividing public opinion everywhere; and he knew it was only a question of time how soon the new nation, at whose head he stood, would be affected.  Histories and biographies which treat of that period, as a rule convey the idea that the foreign policy of our first administration dealt with the complications that arose as they came upon us.  Nothing could be further from the truth, for the general policy was matured at the outset, as has been seen in the letter to Newenham, and the occasions for its application were sure to come sooner or later, in one form or another.  Washington was not surprised by the presence of the perils that he feared, and danger only made him more set on carrying out the policy upon which he had long since determined.  In July, 1791, he wrote to Morris:  “I trust we shall never so far lose sight of our own interest and happiness as to become unnecessarily a party to these political disputes.  Our local situation enables us to maintain that state with respect to them which otherwise could not, perhaps, be preserved by human wisdom.”  He followed this up with a strong and concise argument as to the advantage and necessity of this policy, showing a complete grasp of the subject, which came from long and patient thought.

All his firmness and knowledge were needed, for the position was most trying.  With every ship that brought news of the extraordinary doings in Europe, the applause which greeted the early uprisings of Paris grew less general.  The wise, the prudent, the conservative, cooled gradually at first, and then more quickly in their admiration of the French; but in the beginning, this deepening and increasing hostility to the revolution kept silence.  It was popular to be the friend of France, and highly unpopular to be anything else.  But when excesses multiplied