culty. Lafayette was not only
the proscribed exile of one country, but also the political prisoner
of another, and the President could not compromise the United States
at that critical moment by showing too much interest in the fate of
his unhappy friend. He nevertheless went to the very edge of prudence
in trying to save him, and the ministers of the United States were
instructed to use every private effort to secure Lafayette's release,
or at least the mitigation of his confinement. All these attempts
failed, but Washington was more successful in other directions. He
sent money to Madame de Lafayette, who was absolutely beggared at the
moment, and represented to her that it was in settlement of an account
which he owed the marquis. When Lafayette's son and his own namesake
came to this country for an asylum, he had him cared for in Boston and
New York by his personal friends; George Cabot in the one case, and
Hamilton in the other. As soon as public affairs made it proper for
him to do it, he took the lad into his own household, treated him like
a son, and kept him near him until events permitted the boy to return
to Europe and rejoin his father. The sufferings and dangers of
Lafayette and his family were indeed a source of great unhappiness
to Washington, and we have the authority of Bradford, his
attorney-general, that when the President attempted to talk about
Lafayette he was so much affected that he shed tears,--a very rare
exhibition of emotion in a man so intensely reserved.

Absence had as little effect upon his memory of old friends as
misfortune. The latter stimulated recollection, and the former could
not dim it. He found time, in the very heat and fire of war and
revolution, to write to Bryan Fairfax lamenting the death of "the good
old lord" whose house had been open to him, and whose hand had ever
helped him when he was a young and unknown man just beginning his
career. When he returned to Mount Vernon after the presidency, full of
years and honors, one of his first acts was to write to Mrs. Fairfax
in England to assure her of his lasting remembrance, and to breathe
a sigh over the changes time had brought, and over the by-gone years
when they had been young together.

The loyalty of nature which made his remembrance of old friends so
real and lasting found expression also in the thoughtfulness which he
showed toward casual acquaintances, and this was especially the case
when he had received attention