ides of the water, to dispel the
cloud which ignorance or design may throw over the real state of European
and French politics.

In the mean while I believe it to be the duty of every American returned
home to let his fellow citizens know what wretched handle is made of the
violent collisions, threats of a separation, and reciprocal abuse, to
injure the character and question the stability of republican
institutions. I too much depend upon the patriotism and good sense of the
several parties in the United States to be afraid that those dissensions
may terminate in a final dissolution of the Union; and should such an
event be destined in future to take place, deprecated as it has been by
the best wishes of the departed founders of the Revolution,--Washington
at their head,--it ought at least, in charity, not to take place before
the not remote period when every one of those who have fought and bled in
the cause shall have joined their contemporaries.

What is to be said of Poland and the situation of her heroic, unhappy
sons, you well know, having been a constant and zealous member of our
committee.

You know what sort of mental perturbation, among the ignorant part of
every European nation, has accompanied the visit of the cholera in
Russia, Germany, Hungary, and several parts of Great Britain and France--
suspicions of poison, prejudices against the politicians, and so forth. I
would tike to know whether the population of the United States has been
quite free of these aberrations, as it would be an additional argument in
behalf of republican institutions and superior civilization resulting
from them.

Most truly and affectionately,

Your friend,
LAFAYETTE

As we see from the beginning of this letter, Morse had now determined to
return home. He had executed all the commissions for copies which had
been given to him, and his ambitious painting of the interior of the
Louvre was so far finished that he could complete it at home. He sailed
from Havre on the 1st of October in the packetship Sully. The name of
this ship has now become historic, and a chance conversation in mid-ocean
was destined to mark an epoch in human evolution. Before sailing,
however, he made a flying trip to England, and he writes to his brothers
from London on September 21:--

"Here I am once more in England and on the wing _home_. I shall probably
sail from Havre in the packet of October 1 (the Sully), and I shall leave
London for Southampto