[LITERARY NOTICES.]
Memoirs, Correspondence, and Manuscripts, of General Lafayette. Published by his Family. Volume One. pp. 552. With a Portrait. New-York: Saunders and Otley.
We gather from an advertisement of the American editor of this large and beautiful volume, William A. Duer, Esq., that it was the desire of Lafayette that it should be considered as a legacy to the American people. In carrying his wishes into effect, therefore, his representatives have furnished a separate edition for this country, in which are inserted many letters that will not appear in the London and Paris editions, together with numerous details relating to the American revolution. The letters referred to, were written by Lafayette, in the course of his first residence in America, when he was little accustomed to write in the English language, and are given exactly as they came from his pen. We need not add, that they are replete with interest.
The general history of the great Apostle of Liberty is familiar to the American people. In a brief notice of the volume before us, therefore, we shall select a few only of such passages as have more particularly impressed us, in a desultory perusal. The annexed paragraph, from the opening of the memoir, is characteristic. The writer, though indulging a secret project of arming and despatching a vessel to this country, to aid the struggling colonies, is nevertheless obliged, the better to conceal his designs, to take a journey to England:
"I could not refuse to go, without risking the discovery of my secret, and by consenting to take this journey, I knew I could better conceal my preparations for a greater one. This last measure was also thought most expedient by MM. Franklin and Deane; for the doctor himself was then in France; and although I did not venture to go to his home, for fear of being seen, I corresponded with him through M. Carmichael, an American less generally known. I arrived in London with M. de Poix; and I first paid my respects to Bancroft, the American, and afterwards to his British Majesty. A youth of nineteen may be, perhaps, too fond of playing a trick upon the king he is going to fight with—of dancing at the house of Lord Germain, minister for the English colonies, and at the house of Lord Rawdon, who had just returned from New-York—and of seeing at the opera that Clinton whom he was afterwards to meet at Monmouth. But whilst I concealed my intentions, I openly avowed my sentiments; I often defended the Americans; I rejoiced at their success at Trenton; and my spirit of opposition obtained for me an invitation to breakfast with Lord Shelbourne. I refused the offers made me to visit the sea-ports, the vessels fitting out against the rebels, and every thing that might be construed into an abuse of confidence. At the end of three weeks, when it became necessary for me to return home, whilst refusing my uncle, the ambassador, to accompany him to court, I confided to him my strong desire to take a trip to Paris. He proposed saying that I was ill during my absence, I should not have made use of this stratagem myself, but I did not object to his doing so."
In reading, from his own pen, the account of his leaving France—the violent and peremptory letters from his family and government, denouncing his purpose, and demanding its relinquishment—the grief of his lovely wife, soon to become a mother—we are reminded of that forcible tribute of Sprague to this lofty disinterestedness, than which nothing in the English language is more touching and felicitous. Though doubtless familiar to many of our readers, we cannot resist the inclination to quote a single appropriate passage: 'He left,' says he, 'the blushing vine-hills of his delightful France. The people whom he came to succour were not his people; he knew them only in the wicked story of their wrongs. He was no mercenary wretch, striving for the spoils of the vanquished; he ranked among nobles, and looked unawed upon kings. He was no nameless outcast, seeking for a grave to hide his cold heart; his children were about him—his wife was before him. Yet from all these he turned away, and came. As the lofty tree shakes down its green glories to battle with the winter storm, he threw aside the trappings of pride and place, to crusade for freedom in Freedom's holy land. He came, not in the day of successful rebellion, when the newly-risen star of independence had burst the cloud of time, and careered to its place in the heavens; but he came when darkness curtained the hills, and the tempest was abroad in its anger; when the plough stood still in the field of promise, and briars cumbered the garden of beauty; when the wife was binding up the gashed bosom of her husband, and the maiden was wiping the death-damp from the brow of her lover; and when the pious began to doubt the favor of God.'
In the intervals of that heart destroying malady, sea-sickness, Lafayette employed his time, during the voyage, in acquiring some knowledge of the English language; and when at last he arrived on our coast, he found it swarming with hostile vessels, and landed at midnight at Georgetown, South Carolina. He soon started for Philadelphia, which he reached after a month's toilsome journey of nine hundred miles, on horseback. Even here he was met, at first, with coldness; for, although arriving at an important moment to the common cause, it was at a period peculiarly unfavorable to strangers:
"The Americans were displeased with the pretensions, and disgusted with the conduct, of many Frenchmen; the imprudent selections they had in some cases made, the extreme boldness of some foreign adventurers, the jealousy of the army, and strong national prejudices, all contributed to confound disinterested zeal with private ambition, and talents with quackery. Supported by the promises which had been given by Mr. Deane, a numerous band of foreigners besieged the Congress; their chief was a clever but very imprudent man, and although a good officer, his excessive vanity amounted almost to madness. With M. de Lafayette, Mr. Deane had sent out a fresh detachment, and every day such crowds arrived, that the Congress had finally adopted the plan of not listening to any stranger. The coldness with which M. de Lafayette was received, might have been taken as a dismissal; but, without appearing disconcerted by the manner in which the deputies addressed him, he entreated them to return to Congress, and read the following note:
"'After the sacrifices I have made, I have the right to exact two favors: one is, to serve at my own expense—the other is, to serve at first as volunteer.'"
"This style, to which they were so little accustomed, awakened their attention; the despatches from the envoys were read over, and, in a very flattering resolution, the rank of major-general was granted to M. de Lafayette."
Here Lafayette beheld, for the first time, the 'Father of his Country.' 'It was impossible,' says he, 'to mistake, for a moment, his majestic figure and deportment; nor was he less distinguished by his noble affability of manner.' The following is a picture of the American army, at this time stationed a few miles from Philadelphia: