To Benjamin Franklin from Lafayette, 4 December 1782
From Lafayette
ALS: Library of Congress
On Board the Censeur December the 4th 1782
Dear Sir
To My Very Great Concern, I Have not Yet Received Your Answer to My letter,4 Nor the Account of What Has officially Past in Monney Matters— But Your Opinion Has Been I should Go, and I Am Pursuing an object that May I Hope prove Useful to America— Upon Your Opinion therefore, I Determine My Going— We are Under sails With 9 ships of the line, And about 6000 Men Recruits Included—5 Your letters I Beg You Will send to Mis. [Marquis] de Castries Who Will forward them. My Best Respects Wait Upon Mis. jay Adams and T. franklin With the Most tender Affection and Regard I am My dear sir Yours
Lafayette
4. Lafayette’s Nov. 21 letter to the peace commissioners, above.
5. The French eventually collected 24 ships of the line and 12,000 men at Cadiz, but they and a Spanish contingent were unable to sail for Jamaica before France and Spain reached a preliminary peace agreement with Britain (much to the relief of the French government): Dull, French Navy, pp. 318–19, 333–5; Louis Gottschalk, Lafayette and the Close of the American Revolution (Chicago, 1942), p. 399.