I ought to have mentioned in the letter which I took the liberty to write to you a few days since what I had then chiefly in my mind abstracted from the personal consideration of health.1

I thought that perhaps it might come within your view at this juncture to send a commissioned person to Vienna to solicit the release of Mr la Fayette with powers to proceed to France on a like errand in favor of his wife and children, in order that the whole might be removed to this country.2

I perceive by the act of Congress for discharging his pay during the war the new obligation you have laid up on your unfortunate friend.3 If it is possible to go beyond pecuniary aid, or so far as to restore him to liberty and his family how would he rejoice to owe that blessing to the man he affectionates most upon earth; and what sublime pleasure to me to be an humble instrument in its accomplishment. The friendship he has always expressed for me; the friendship I feel for him; a conviction of the patriotism of his principles and purity of his motives; the esteem in which he is still held by America; a remembrance of the moment and his youth when he embarked in our cause, and the services he rendered it in the course of our revolution, all conspire to make such a project peculiarly interesting to the feeling heart: at the same time, Sir, you must be sensible, you who on former occasions have not deemed me unworthy some portion of your confidence, that such a mission would reflect upon you its author, and from whom alone it ought to proceed, as long as exalted friendship shall be ranked among the virtues, a lustre which philosophy must delight to contemplate and history to diffuse among mankind for their benefit or instruction. The friendship of Achilles for his dear Patroclus, as celebrated by Homer, has survived the fate of empires and the charges of time, as if destined to serve as a perpetual monument sacred to friendship.4 May not another Homer arise to consign yours for Fayette to equal immortality, and tears of pleasure flow at its recital like an exhaustless stream through the long period of future ages.

But if all this should prove no more than a dream of friendship, I hope for the sake of the object, that you will excuse the dreamer for troubling you with his vision,5 who be assured when awake, is and has always been affectionately and truly your most obt & hble st