But it is so now, and I am filled with deep regret that you are going and with deep gratitude that you came to us and were here when the war broke out and subsequently.

If the United States had been represented here by any one less decided as to the right and wrong of the war and less firm and courageous than yourself, the whole of the relations between your country and ours would have been in peril.

And if the two countries had gone apart instead of coming together the whole fate of the world would be very different from what I hope it will now be.
I have often thought that the forces behind public affairs are so tremendous that individuals have little real, even when much apparent, influence upon the course of events.

But in the early years of the war I think everything might have gone wrong if it had not been that certain men of strong moral conviction were in certain places.

And you were preeminently one of these.