December 11th
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“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.”
To James Monroe
Philadelphia, 25 August 1796
Thus, Sir, you have the substance candidly related, of a letter which, you say, you have been told by a person, “who has read it, has produced an ill effect,” when in my opinion the contrary (viewing it the light of an unreserved and confidential communication) ought to have been produced. for I repeat it again, that unless my pacific disposition was displeasing, nothing else could have given umbrage by the most rigid construction of the letter; or that will shew in the remotest degree any disposition on my part to favor the british interests in their dispute with France.
James Monroe, 1816
National Portrait Gallery
My conduct in public and private life, as it relates to the important struggle in which the latter nation 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 and circumstanced as we are; already deeply in debt, and in a convalescent state, from the struggle we have been engaged in ourselves.
On these principles, I have steadily and uniformly proceeded; bidding defiance to calumnies calculated to sow the seeds of distrust in the French nation, and to excite their belief of an influence, possessed by Great Britain in the councils of this Country; than which nothing is more unfounded and injurious; the object of its pacific conduct being truly delineated above. I am—Dear Sir Your Obedient and Very Humble Servt
G:o Washington
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