nt concerning the
prisoner, to the Austrian minister in England, and to solicit the
powerful mediation of the British cabinet. These efforts failed, and
Washington, disdaining to make further application to the deputies of
sovereignty, whose petty tyranny was proverbial, determined to go to the
fountain-head of power in the dominion where his friend was suffering,
and, on the fifteenth of May, he wrote as follows to the emperor of
Germany:--

"It will readily occur to your majesty, that occasions may
sometimes exist, on which official considerations would constrain
the chief of a nation to be silent and passive in relation even to
objects which affect his sensibility, and claim his interposition
as a man. Finding myself precisely in this situation at present, I
take the liberty of writing this private letter to your majesty,
being persuaded that my motives will also be my apology for it.

"In common with the people of this country, I retain a strong and
cordial sense of the services rendered to them by the Marquis de
Lafayette; and my friendship for him has been constant and sincere.
It is natural, therefore, that I should sympathize with him and his
family in their misfortunes, and endeavor to mitigate the
calamities which they experience; among which, his present
confinement is not the least distressing.

"I forbear to enlarge on this delicate subject. Permit me only to
submit to your majesty's consideration, whether his long
imprisonment, and the confiscation of his estates, and the
indigence and dispersion of his family, and the painful anxieties
incident to all these circumstances, do not form an assemblage of
sufferings which recommend him to the mediation of humanity? Allow
me, sir, on this occasion to be its organ, and to entreat that he
may be permitted to come to this country, on such conditions, and
under such restrictions, as your majesty may think it expedient to
prescribe.

"As it is a maxim with me not to ask what, under similar
circumstances, I would not grant, your majesty will do me the
justice to believe, that this request appears to me to correspond
with those great principles of magnanimity and wisdom which form
the basis of sound policy and durable glory.

"May the Almighty and Merciful Sovereign of the universe keep your
majesty under his