In his whole foreign policy, which was so peculiarly his own, the American spirit was his pole star; and of all the attacks made upon him, the only one which really tried his soul was the accusation that he was influenced by foreign predilections. The blind injustice, which would not comprehend that his one purpose was to be American and to make the people and the government American, touched him more deeply than anything else. As party strife grew keener over the issues raised by the war between France and England, and as French politics and French ideas became more popular, his feelings found more frequent utterance, and it is interesting to see how this man, who, we are now told, was an English country gentleman, wrote and felt on this matter in very trying times. Let us remember, as we listen to him now in his own defense, that he was an extremely honest man, silent for the most part in doing his work, but when he spoke meaning every word he said, and saying exactly what he meant. This was the way in which he wrote to Patrick Henry in October, 1795, when he offered him the secretaryship of State:--
"My ardent desire is, and my aim has been as far as depended upon the executive department, to comply strictly with all our engagements, foreign and domestic; but to keep the United States free from political connection with every other country, to see them independent of all and under the influence of none. In a word, I want an _American_ character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced that we act for _ourselves_, and not for others. This, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home; and not, by becoming partisans of Great Britain or France, create dissensions, disturb the public tranquillity, and destroy, perhaps forever, the cement which binds the Union."
Not quite a year later, when the Jay treaty was still agitating the public mind in regard to our relations with France, he wrote to Pickering:--
"The Executive has a plain road to pursue, namely, to fulfill all the engagements which duty requires; be influenced beyond this by none of the contending parties; maintain a strict neutrality unless obliged by imperious circumstances to depart from it; do justice to all, and never forget that we are Americans, the remembrance of which will convince us that we ought not to be French or English."