From George Washington to the Marquise de Lafayette, 5 June 1795
To the Marquise de Lafayette
Philadelphia 5th June 1795
Madam,
Neither your situation nor mine, will render it advisable for me to add more to the enclosed letter—which was written agreeably to its date—and received by Mr Van Staphorst (as will appear by the correspondence between us, which is also enclosed)1 than to assure you of the sincere pleasure I felt in learning from Mr Monroe’s letters to the secretary of State, that you were in Paris and at liberty—after a long and painful confinement; particularly, as he accompanied it with the pleasing information, that in behalf of this country and conformably to the dictates of his own sensibility, he had aided you with means to supply your present exigencies.2
To touch on the case of Mr de la Fayette in this letter would be still more delicate—and, under present circumstances, as unavailing as it would be inexpedient.3 For these reasons, I shall only add a renewal of the assurances of the sincerest esteem & regard for you, and yours, with which I have the honor to be, Madam, Your most Obedient and Very humble Servant4
Go: Washington
ALS, DLC: Monroe Papers; LB, DLC:GW. The docket contains the date “1793,” most likely in reference to GW’s correspondence of that year concerning his efforts to provide Mme. Lafayette with financial assistance. Copies of that correspondence were enclosed in this letter.
1. GW enclosed a duplicate of his letter to the marquise dated 31 Jan. 1793, the original of which he had sent to Nicholas Van Staphorst of Amsterdam. GW discussed a bill of exchange for 2,310 guilders for the use of the marquise during the imprisonment of her husband—the first of three bills of exchange that the president sent to her. For the correspondence between GW and Van Staphorst, see Van Staphorst to GW, 2 May 1793, and notes; and GW to Van Staphorst, 30 and 31 Jan., 15 March, and 1 Sept. 1793.
2. James Monroe informed Edmund Randolph on 12 Feb.: “I am happy to inform you that Mrs La Fayette was lately set at liberty.” The marquise, however, “is and has been for sometime past destitute of resource, and in consequence required aid, not only for present support but to discharge the debts that were already due, and for which she applied to me and was accordingly furnished with a sum in assignats equivalent to about 1,000 dollars in specie. I made this advance upon the principle it was my duty to make it as the representative of the U. States, and in the expectation that the like sum which should be paid to my order by our Bankers in Amsterdam, would be taken from the fund appropriated to the use of her husband, by the Congress.” Monroe requested permission to draw “upon that fund future advances, adequate to her support” (DNA: RG 59, Despatches from U.S. Ministers to France; see also 3:228). On 27 March 1794, Congress granted $24,425 to the Marquis de Lafayette as payment for his services as a major general in the Continental army ( 14).
3. For the capture and imprisonment of the Marquis de Lafayette, see the Marquise de Lafayette to GW, 8 Oct. 1792, and Gouverneur Morris to GW, 23 Oct. 1792, n.1. GW had written Frederick William II of Prussia on 15 Jan. 1794 to request the release of the Marquis de Lafayette.
4. Also on 5 June, GW wrote to Monroe: “As a private concern, I shall take the liberty of troubling you with the enclosed; requesting that it may be presented, or forwarded, as the case may be, to Madam la Fayette. The papers are under a flying seal, that seeing the scope & design of them, you may, (if the money therein mentioned should not have reached her hands—of which I have received no information) be enabled to assist her in obtaining it” (ALS, DLC: Monroe Papers; ADfS, DLC:GW; LB, DLC:GW).