MAY 13th
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“Your preservation is the life of Your friends, the Sallvation of Your Country.”
National Park Service
From Marquis de Lafayette
Paris, 23 August 1790*
My Dear General
What could have been my feelings, had the news of your illness reached me before I knew my beloved General, my adoptive father, was out of danger? I was struck with horror at the idea of the situation you have been in, while I, uninformed and so distant from you, was anticipating the long waited-for pleasure to hear from you, and the still more endearing prospect to visit you, and present you the tribute of a revolution, one of your first offsprings.
For God’s sake, my dear General, take care of your health! Do not devote yourself so much to the Cabinet, while your habit of life has, from your young years, accustomed you to constant exercise. Your conservation is the life of your friends, the salvation of your country. It is for you a religious duty, not to neglect what may concern your health. I beg you will let me oftener hear from you. I write when an opportunity offers; and to my great sorrow I hear my letters must have miscarried, or been detained. But, as our correspondence can have no other bounds but the opportunities to write, it was not a reason, give me leave to say, for you to miss any that may have offered; and you may easily guess what I am exposed to suffer, what would have been my situation, had I known your illness before the news of your recovery had comforted a heart so affectionately devoted to you.
“To the fulfilment of public duties, too interesting to be neglected, and too multiplied to allow me much leisure, I am forced to sacrifice the wishes of friendship, and the pleasures of private life.”
Yale University Art Gallery
To Marquis de Lafayette
Philadelphia, 19 March 1791
Renewing to you, my dear Sir, assurances of the most perfect esteem and affection, I desire to refer the interruptions which our correspondence has lately sustained, on my part, to causes which I am persuaded you will readily admit as excusable. To the fulfilment of public duties, too interesting to be neglected, and too multiplied to allow me much leisure, I am forced to sacrifice the wishes of friendship, and the pleasures of private life. This reason to you, who suffer the same privations, will apologize for the abridgment of an intercourse, ever grateful to my feelings, and conducive to my happiness.
The tender concern, which you express on my late illness, awakens emotions which words will not explain, and to which your own sensibility can best do justice. My health is now quite restored, and I flatter myself with the hope of a long exemption from sickness. On Monday next I shall enter on the practice of your friendly prescription of exercise; intending at that time to begin a journey to the southward, during which I propose visiting all the southern States.
GEORGE WASHINGTON:
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