A deputation of French sailors presented themselves, and were
received by the guests with the fraternal embrace.' The table was
decorated with the 'tree of liberty,' and a red cap, called the cap
of liberty, was placed on the head of the minister, and from his
travelled in succession from head to head round the table."[1]
[Footnote 1: Jay's _Life_, I, 30.]
But not all the Americans were delirious enthusiasts. Hamilton kept
his head amid the whirling words which, he said, might "do us much
harm and could do France no good." In a letter, which deserves to be
quoted in spite of its length, he states very clearly the opinions of
one of the sanest of Americans. He writes to a friend:
It cannot be without danger and inconvenience to our interests, to
impress on the nations of Europe an idea that we are actuated by
the same spirit which has for some time past fatally misguided the
measures of those who conduct the affairs of France, and sullied
a cause once glorious, and that might have been triumphant. The
cause of France is compared with that of America during its late
revolution. Would to Heaven that the comparison were just! Would
to Heaven we could discern, in the mirror of French affairs, the
same decorum, the same gravity, the same order, the same dignity,
the same solemnity, which distinguished the cause of the American
Revolution! Clouds and darkness would not then rest upon the
issue as they now do.
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