June 13th
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ON THIS DAY IN 1777
MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE ARRIVES
SOUTH CAROLINA
“Your love of liberty; The just sense you entertain of this valuable blessing, and your Noble, and disinterested exertions in the cause of it, added to the innate goodness of your heart, conspire to render you dear to me; and I think myself happy in being linked with you in bonds of strictest friendship.”
Lafayette and Washington Meet, 3 August 1777
Library of Congress
To Marquis de Lafayette
Fredericksburg in the State of New York, 25 September 1778
My Dear Marquis,
Since my last to you, I have been honoured with your several favors of the 1st., 3d., and 21st. of this Month. The two first came to hand before I left the White plains, and the last at this place. I should not have delayed acknowledging the receipt of the 1st. and 3d. till this time, (thereby neglecting to pay that just tribute of respect which is due to you) but for the close attention I was obliged to bestow on the Committee of Arrangement while they remained in Camp; To the March of the Troops since, and, to the several Posts which I found myself under a necessity of visiting in my way to this Incampment.
The Sentiments of affection and attachment which breathe so conspicuously in all your Letters to me, are at once pleasing and honourable; and afford me abundant cause to rejoice at the happiness of my acquaintance with you. Your love of liberty; The just sense you entertain of this valuable blessing, and your Noble, and disinterested exertions in the cause of it, added to the innate goodness of your heart, conspire to render you dear to me; and I think myself happy in being linked with you in bonds of strictest friendship.
General Marquis de Lafayette
Artist: Charles Wilson Peale. NPS
The ardent Zeal which you have displayed during the whole course of the Campaign to the Eastward, and your endeavours to cherish harmony among the officers of the allied powers, and to dispel those unfavourable impressions which had begun to take place in the Minds of the unthinking, (from Misfortunes which the utmost stretch of human foresight could not avert) deserves, and now receives, my particular, and warmest thanks. I am sorry for Monsr. Touzards loss of an arm, in the Action on Rhode Island; and offer my thanks to him, thro you, for his gallant behaviour on that day.
Could I have conceived, that my Picture had been an object of your Wishes, or in the smallest degree worthy of your Attention, I should, while Mr. Peale was in the Camp at Valley forge, have got him to have taken the best Portrait of me he could, and presented it to you; but I really had not so good an opinion of my own worth, as to suppose that such a compliment would not have been considered as a greater instance of my Vanity, than a mean of your gratification; and therefore, when you requested me to set for Monsr. Lanfang I thought it was only to obtain the outlines and a few shades of my features, to have some Prints struck from.
General George Washington
Artist: Charles Wilson Peale. BRM
. . .
The information my dear Marquis, which I beg’d the favor of you to obtain, was not, I am perswaded, to be had thro the Channel of the Officers of the French Fleet, but by application to your fair Lady, to whom I should be happy in an opportunity of paying my homage in Virginia, when the War is ended, if she could be prevailed upon to quit, for a few Months, the gaieties, and splendor of a Court, for the rural amusements of an humble Cottage*. I shall not fail to inform Mrs. Washington of your polite attention to her. The Gentlen. of my family are sensible of the honr. you do them by your kind enquiries and join with me in a tender of best regards, than whom none can offer them with more sincerity, and affection than I do. With every Sentiment you can wish, I am my dear marquis Yr most Obedt & obleg Fd **
G:o Washington
* Mount Vernon
** Lafayette, at the age of two, lost his father in the Seven Years War, and his mother and grandparents in adolescence; Washington became a father figure to the young man as Lafayette was only aged 19 when he arrived in America in 1777 to become a soldier in the Continental army. Ironically, it was Washington who touched off the Seven Years War (the portion fought in America was the French and Indian War) — ARVH
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