dissatisfied with their rank and employment, and bitter complaints and recriminations would ensue.  All these difficulties, of course, fell most heavily upon the commander-in-chief, who was heartily disgusted with the whole business.  Washington believed from the beginning, and said over and over again in various and ever stronger terms, that this was an American war and must be fought by Americans.  In no other way, and by no other persons, did he consider that it could be carried to any success worth having.  He saw of course the importance of a French alliance, and deeply desired it, for it was a leading element in the solution of the political and military situation; but alliance with a foreign power was one thing, and sporadic military volunteers were another.  Washington had no narrow prejudices against foreigners, for he was a man of broad and liberal mind, and no one was more universally beloved and respected by the foreign officers than he; but he was intensely American in his feelings, and he would not admit for an instant that the American war for independence could be righteously fought or honestly won by others than Americans.  He was well aware that foreign volunteers had a value and use of which he largely and gratefully availed himself; but he was exasperated and alarmed by the indiscriminate and lavish way in which Congress and our agents abroad gave rank and office to them.  “Hungry adventurers,” he called them in one letter, when driven beyond endurance by the endless annoyances thus forced upon him; and so he pushed their pretensions aside, and managed, on the whole, to keep them in their proper place.  The operation was delicate, difficult, and unpleasant, for it seemed to savor of ingratitude.  But Washington was never shaken for an instant in his policy, and while he checked the danger, he showed in many instances, like Lafayette and Steuben, that he could appreciate and use all that was really valuable in the foreign contingent.

The service rendered by Washington in this matter has never been justly understood or appreciated.  If he had not taken this position, and held it with an absolute firmness which bordered on harshness, we should have found ourselves in a short time with an army of American soldiers officered by foreigners, many of them mere mercenaries, “hungry adventurers,” from France, Poland or Hungary, from Germany, Ireland or England.  The result of such a combination would have been disorganization and defeat.  That members of Congress and some of our representatives in Europe did not see the danger, and that they were impressed by the foreign officers who came among them, was perfectly natural.  Men are the creatures of the time in which they live, and take their color from the conditions which surround them, as the chameleon does from the grass or leaves in which it hides.  The rulers and lawmakers of 1776 could not cast off their provincial awe of the natives of England and Europe as they cast off their political allegiance to the British king.