My Dear Chevalier: I felt too much to express anything the day I parted with you. A sense of your public services to this country and gratitude for your private friendship quite overcame me at the moment of our separation. But I should be wanting to the feelings of my heart, and do violence to my inclination, were I to suffer you to leave this country without the warmest assurances of an affectionate regard for your person and character.
Our good friend, the Marquis de Lafayette, prepared me (long before I had the honor to see you) for those impressions of esteem which opportunities and your own benevolent mind have since improved into a deep and lasting friendship—a friendship which neither time, nor distance can ever eradicate.
I can truly say that never in my life did I part with a man to whom my soul clave more sincerely than it did to you. My warmest wishes will attend you in your voyage across the Atlantic, to the rewards of a generous prince—the arms of affectionate friends—and be assured that it will be one of my highest gratifications to keep a regular intercourse with you by letter.
I regret exceedingly that circumstances should withdraw you from this country before the final accomplishment of that independence and peace which the arms of our good ally has assisted in placing before us in such an agreeable point of view. Nothing would give me more pleasure than to accompany you after the war in a tour through the great continent of North America, in search of the natural curiosities with which it abounds, and to view at the same time the foundation of a rising empire. I have the honor, etc.,
G. Washington.
P.S.—Permit me to trouble you with the inclosed letter to the Marquis de Lafayette.
VII.
Headquarters, Newburg,
May 10, 1783.
My Dear Chevalier: The affectionate expressions in your farewell letter of the 8th of June from Annapolis gave a new spring to the pleasing remembrance of our past intimacy, and your letter of the 4th of March from Paris has convinced me that time nor distance can eradicate the seeds of friendship when they have taken root in a good soil and are nurtured by philanthropy and benevolence. That I value your esteem, and wish to retain a place in your affections, are truths of which I hope you are convinced, as I wish you to be of my sincerity when I assure you that it is among the first wishes of my heart to pay the tribute of respect to your nation, to which I am prompted by motives of public consideration and private friendships; but how far it may be in my power to yield a prompt obedience to my inclination is more than I can decide upon at present.
You have, my dear Chevalier, placed before my eyes the exposed situation of my seat on the Potomack, and warned me of the danger which is to be apprehended from a surprise; but as I have an entire confidence in it, and an affection for your countrymen, I shall bid defiance to the enterprise, under a full persuasion that, if success should attend it and I cannot make terms for my releasement, I shall be generously treated by my captors, and there is such a thing as a pleasing captivity.