FREDERICK II.
“I have seen also the Austrians, but not all assembled. Their general system of economy should be more admired than the manœuvres of their troops. Their method is not simple; our regiments are better than theirs, and such advantage as they could have in line over us, we could with a little practice surpass them. I really believe that there is no need for more instructions of details in some of our best regiments than in those of the Prussians; but their manœuvres are infinitely preferable to ours.
“In a week I dined with the Prussian king, his dinner lasting three hours. The conversation was confined to the Duke of York, the king, myself, and two or three others, so that I had plenty of opportunity to listen to him, and to admire the vivacity of his wit and the charm of his graciousness.
“At last I almost forgot he was a despot, selfish and severe. Lord Cornwallis was there. The king placed him next me at table, and on his other hand he had the son of the king of England; then he asked a thousand questions on American affairs.”
This was surely a strange combination of circumstances and of guests; but just this sort of ironical environments would delight the sarcastic soul of the cunning old warrior.
La Fayette had an equally strange experience in America. During his campaign in Virginia, in an action in which he was in command, General Phillips was killed, and this general had been the officer who had commanded the enemy’s troops at Minden when the father of La Fayette was slain.
La Fayette met Cornwallis again in 1801, when the English lord came over to Paris to negotiate a general peace.
American independence having been secured, La Fayette’s sympathies were aroused in behalf of the oppressed African race. His soul abhorred injustice of any sort, and when he met a wrong he always endeavored to aid in righting it.
He did not content himself with æsthetically expressing his sympathy, but his enthusiasm always led him to action. Whatsoever he did he entered into with his whole might, and where there was wrong and oppression, he felt himself called upon to devote his energies, his position, and his purse in the cause of the oppressed. So greatly was he moved in behalf of the negro slaves, that he wrote to Washington soon after the American war as follows:—