5th. With the account of each particular period that portion of the correspondence which may relate to it will be inserted. From a great number of letters, written from America, and addressed either to France or to America, or from France to America, those only have been suppressed whose repetitions or details, purely military, would render them uninteresting to the public.
6th. In the Correspondence, some letters have been inserted from General Washington, and other contemporaries, and also some historical records, of which M. de Lafayette had taken copies, or which have been extracted from various collections published in the United States.
Endnote
1. M. de Lafayette (Marie-Paul-Joseph-Roch-Yves-Gilbert Motier) born at Chavaniae, in Auvergne, the 6th of September, 1757; married the 11th of April, 1774; set out for America the 26th of April, 1777. The other dates will be mentioned in proper order, with each particular event. All the notes which are not followed by the name of M. de Lafayette, may be attributed to the members of his family, sole editors of this work.
TO THE READER.~{1}
When, devoted from early youth to the ambition of liberty, I beheld no limit to the path that I had opened for myself, it appeared to me that I was sufficiently fulfilling my destiny, and satisfying my glory, by rushing incessantly forward, and leaving to others the care of collecting the recollections, as well as the fruits, of my labour.