George Washington Quotes
If Mr. Monroe should ever fill the Chair of Government, he may let the French Minister frame his Speeches.... There is abundant evidence of his being a mere tool in the hands of the French government
Monroe got along very well with the French, so much so that Washington suspected him of being a dupe in French hands.
George Washington, 1732-1799, 1st President of the United States (VA), Negative assessment of James Monroe, 1797
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Thompson sailed into Phnom Phen in a gunboat. With armed “bodyguards” he forced his way into the palace, manhandled the king’s secretary who tried to prevent him from seeing King Norodom, and presented the treaty to the king who signed it. Cambodia had sought French “protection” from the two great powers adjacent, Vietnam and Thailand—see {601401}. In addition to the pressure of the two large neighbors, Norodum’s government was extremely weak and the French were ready to back a rival Sisowath. One of the ironies of this egregious example of gunboat diplomacy is that one of the first things the French did under the clause was to abolish Cambodian slavery. There were a few good things that occurred with most colonialism. The argument has always been was the good worth the bad that inevitably came with an undemocratic form of government.
George Washington was the first President of the United States (1789-97), the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He presided over the convention that drafted the current United States Constitution and during his lifetime was called the "father of his country".
