suffer and to die."
And yet his great soul went out to his suffering fellow-man as free as
the air of heaven; and with a toothpick (for he was deprived of pen and
ink) he wrote to a princess, who sympathized with him, on a scrap of
paper which came to him almost miraculously, and with soot and water,
these noble words: "I know not what disposition has been made of my
plantation at Cayenne, but I hope Madame Lafayette will take care that
the negroes who cultivate it shall preserve their liberty." He had set
them all free.

The marchioness, as soon as she was allowed the privilege, hastened to
Olmutz with her daughters to share the dungeon with the husband and
father; while their son, whom they had named in honor of their
illustrious friend, came to the United States with his tutor, M.
Frestel, consigned to the fatherly care of Washington. Young Lafayette
was then about seventeen years of age.

The two exiles arrived at Boston at the close of the summer of 1795, and
they immediately sent information of the fact to the president, who was
just on the point of leaving Philadelphia for Mount Vernon. Washington's
first impulse was to take the young man to his bosom and cherish him as
a son; but, as we have observed, grave reasons of state denied him that
pleasure. After brief reflection, he sent the letters of the exiles, to
Senator Cabot, of Boston, saying:--

"To express all the sensibility which has been excited in my breast
by the receipt of young Lafayette's letter, from the recollection
of his father's merits, services and sufferings, from my friendship
for him, and from my wishes to become a friend and father to his
son, is unnecessary."[87] Let me in a few words declare that I will
be his friend; but the manner of becoming so, considering the
obnoxious light in which his father is viewed by the French
government, and my own situation as the executive of the United
States, requires more time to consider, in all its relations, than
I can bestow on it at present, the letters not having been in my
hands more than an hour, and I myself on the point of setting out
for Virginia to fetch my family back, whom I left there about the
first of August.

"The mode, which at the first view strikes me as the most eligible
to answer his purposes and to save appearances, is, first, to
administer all the consolation to the young gentleman that he can