" For I love to indulge the contemplation of human nature in a progressive state of improvement and melioration: and if the idea would not be considered as visionary and chimerical, I could fondly hope that the present plan of the great Potentate of the North [Catherine the Great], might, in some measure, lay the foundation for that assimilation of language, which, producing assimilation of manners and interests, should one day remove many of the causes of hostility from amongst mankind. "

George Washington to the Marquis de Lafayette | Thursday, January 10, 1788