Page:The Federalist (1818).djvu/584

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Letters of

As far as the assertion with regard to the monarch may be well founded, and is an objection to our gratitude to him, it destroys the whole fabric of gratitude to France. For our gratitude is, and must be, relative to the services performed. The nation can only claim it on the score of their having been rendered by their agent with their means. If the views with which he performs them divested them of the merit which ought to inspire gratitude, none is due. The nation, no more than their agent, can claim it.

With regard to the individual good wishes of the citizens of France, as they did not produce the services rendered to us as a nation, they can be no foundation for national gratitude. They can only call for a reciprocation of individual good wishes. They cannot form the basis of public obligation.

But the assertion takes more for granted than there is reason to believe true.

Louis the XVI. no doubt took part in our contest from reasons of state; but Louis the XVI. was a man humane and kind hearted. The acts of his early youth had entitled him to this character. It is natural for a man of this disposition to become interested in the cause of those whom he protects or aids; and if the concurrent testimony of the period may be credited, there was no man in France more personally friendly to the cause of this country than Louis the XVI. I am much misinformed if repeated declarations of the venerable Franklin did not attest this fact.

It is a just tribute to the people of France to admit, that they manifested a lively interest in the cause of America; but while motives are scanned, who can say how much of it is to be ascribed to the antipathy which they bore to their rival neighbour; how much to their sympathy in the object of our pursuit? It is certain that the love of liberty was not a national sentiment in France, when a zeal for our cause first appeared among that people.

There is reason to believe too, that the attachment to our cause, which ultimately became very extensive, if

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