Lafayette (40 page)

On August 14, he left for Baltimore, and after two days of festivities there, he pressed on to Mount Vernon. Three days later, after a separation of three years, he embraced his “adoptive father” once again.

“Though I do not know if my letter will reach you, my sweetheart, I had to write you of my arrival at Mount Vernon and of the joy I felt at seeing my dear general again; you know me too well for me to have to describe my emotions. . . . I found him on his farm, where our meeting was deeply moving and equally joyful for us both.”
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Martha was equally effusive in embracing their young visitor and showing him the portraits he had sent of Adrienne and himself and their children, hanging in the most prominent place in the living room, above the mantel.

After their emotional reunion, Lafayette gave the Washingtons a beautiful little note in the carefully crafted handwriting of a child just learning her penmanship. “Dear Washington,” it began. “I hope that papa whill come back so[o]n here. I am very sorry for the loss of him, but I am verry glade [glad] for you self. I wich [wish] you a werry good health and I am whith great respect, Dear Sir, your most obedient servent, anastasie la fayette.”

Lafayette also brought Washington a precious gift from Adrienne—a Masonic apron she herself had embroidered. For the rest of his life, Washington would wear Adrienne’s treasured apron at every Masonic and appropriate public function, including his laying of the cornerstone at the United States Capitol in the new federal city of Washington, in September, 1793.
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Lafayette spent the next ten emotion-filled days in the bosom of the Washington family—and a large one it was, overflowing with children, large and small. The Washingtons adored children; Martha’s widowed daughter-in-law had left them two of her four to raise until she remarried, and she, her second husband, and all four of her children were roaming and romping
through the mansion when Lafayette arrived. He embraced them all, particularly Martha’s fat little grandson, George Washington Parke Custis, whom Lafayette called “Squire Tub.” George Augustine Washington, the general’s nephew and Lafayette’s aide in the Virginia campaign, was also at Mount Vernon with his fiancée, and each day, legions of other Washington relatives and friends—and all their children—trooped happily in and out of the great home, filling it and the surrounding lawns and gardens with a continuum of happy shrieks and roars of laughter.

“Washington, in retirement,” Lafayette wrote to Adrienne,

is even greater than he was during the Revolution. His simplicity is truly sublime, and he is as deeply involved in the details of managing his lands and home as if he had always been here. . . . To give you an idea of how we spend our time, after lunch, the general and I chat for a while, and, after thoroughly discussing the past, the state of things today and the outlook for the future, he retires to take care of business and gives me things to read that were written during my absence; then we go down to dinner with Mrs. Washington and neighbors; the table conversation turns to events of the war and anecdotes we like to remember. After tea, we resume our private conversations and spend the rest of the evening with the family. There, sweetheart, is how we spend our time; we often speak of you, our children and everything else that has to do with the family.
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Martha kept the table overflowing with hams and peach brandy that captivated Lafayette’s palate. “There are two of Mrs. Washington’s grandsons here,” Lafayette wrote to Adrienne,

as you know she was married once before. The general has adopted them and loves them deeply; it was quite funny when I arrived to see the curious looks on those two small faces who had heard nothing but talk of me the entire day and wanted to see if I looked like my portrait. The general loved reading your letter and that of Anastasie, and I’ve been charged with sending you the most loving regards of the entire family, and Mrs. Washington told me today that, with both of them so old, you must not deprive them of the joy of receiving you and our little family; I made a solemn vow, sweetheart, to bring you with me on the next trip; Mount Vernon stands on the most beautiful site; it is as if the Pottowmack was created for it. The house is most beautiful and the countryside is charming.
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A brilliant horticulturalist and agriculturalist, Washington took Lafayette on his daily ride across his farms at dawn, to give his managers directions for the day. After they returned to the house and ate breakfast, Washington guided Lafayette through his gardens, orchards, and greenhouse, pointing out rare species and questioning Lafayette about varieties of unusual plants in Europe that he might add to his gardens. Always ready to emulate his idol,
Lafayette quickly developed a new interest in horticulture, writing to Adrienne, “I have discovered here a climbing plant that stays green all year and would make a fine showing on the two walls of our terrace. When it reaches you, I beg that you will have it planted at the foot of the two walls. I am also sending something which in summer will cover them with beautiful red flowers.”
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On November 28, Washington accompanied Lafayette and his aide, de Caraman, as far as Alexandria, before leaving to inspect lands he owned west of the Alleghenies. They said their farewells in a tavern, where Lafayette “got a little tipsy,” but shed none of his usual tears, because they had planned another reunion before he returned to France. He and de Caraman continued to Annapolis and then Baltimore. Both cities fêted him with the usual parades, banquets, and accolades. Baltimore held a dinner and formal ball for three hundred at City Hall, where he renewed his acquaintance with James Madison, by then as fervent an advocate of union as Lafayette. The two had met in 1781, when Lafayette was returning to France and Madison was a Virginia delegate in Congress. Six years older than Lafayette, Madison was born of a wealthy planter and had graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton). Like Lafayette, he was an avid student of political philosophy, was fluent in Latin, and spoke French well. They decided to continue north together.

During four days of more revelry in New York, the city designated Lafayette “a freeman and citizen of the City of New York” and unleashed a national frenzy to designate the marquis a “citizen” of every place he visited. By coincidence, when Lafayette was in New York, Congress appointed three commissioners to negotiate peace with the Six (Indian) Nations at a powwow by Lake Oneida in northern New York, and they asked Lafayette to help. The English in Canada had fomented hostilities between Indians and Americans, who were streaming westward through Indian territory to farm the rich Ohio Valley. The Six Nations had once been allies of the French and were themselves divided over white migration, with four tribes demanding war and two favoring peaceful trade. As an Iroquois Indian by adoption who had embraced the American cause, Lafayette represented a bond between Americans, French, and Indians.

“These savages still . . . speak of the French nation with great reverence,” Ambassador de Marbois explained, “even though their relations with us ended more than twenty years ago. They love [alcoholic] spirits passionately, but they say that the French were their true fathers because the French refused them this poison that the British furnished them in abundance.”
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Intrigued by the expedition and increasingly fond of Lafayette, Madison decided to join Lafayette, de Caraman, and the French ambassador on the
two-hundred-mile trek. A comfortable boat carried them the first one hundred twenty miles up the Hudson River past Albany to the mouth of the Mohawk River, but the carriage that was to take them the rest of the way broke apart on the rough roads and forced them to continue on horseback through the bitter cold. Only Lafayette had soldiered through the miserable winters of the Revolutionary War, and only he had known to bring a thick cloak—and line it with layers of newspapers to insulate himself from the cold. Lafayette “appears to be impervious to heat, cold, drought, moisture and intemperance of the weather,” wrote the shivering de Marbois. The “barbarous and savage” last leg of the journey made the little band “force their horses through the narrow woods, following as best as we could a footpath made for the savages, who always go on foot. The streams form a continuous boggy swamp into which we sank at every step. Trees of immense height and girth fall from old age . . . make the paths difficult for people on horseback. . . . We were lost for a time, but our guides soon found the way again. The trees serve them for compasses. They know which is the south side by the bark, which is brown and more moss-covered on that side than on the north.”
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A white flag flew over the council hall at Oneida Castle when they arrived. “There we found the chiefs and warriors of the nations assembled,” de Marbois recounted. “They received us with the hospitality that the savages show toward all those who are not their enemies. . . . After the usual compliments, they brought us a large salmon that they had just caught. We had lots of milk, butter, fruit, and honey.”
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Two hours of dancing followed, made all the eerier for de Marbois by the curious dress of the chiefs—old French, English, and German uniforms. All were treasured gifts, however, that the chiefs reserved for special occasions.

“Here I am in the country of the savages, surrounded by Hurons and Iroquois,” Lafayette wrote to Adrienne effusively. Unlike his terrified companions, he felt like a tourist on a glorious adventure.
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In a second letter, he quipped that, because of his receding hairline, “I will not lose my scalp, because you cannot lose what you don’t have.”
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Lafayette amazed the trembling French ambassador: “Mr. de la Fayette has their confidence and their devotion to an extraordinary degree,” he wrote in his diary. “Those who have seen him before have a great urge to see him again. They have communicated their enthusiasms to their friends, and they seem proud to wear around their necks some trinket that he once gave them.”
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On October 3, commissioner Oliver Wolcott of Connecticut
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introduced Lafayette to the powwow by his Iroquois name, Kayewla: “He is a great man among the French, one of the head warriors of the great Onondio [Louis XVI], and as you all know, a general in the American army and a
headman among us, who comes with his friends to pay you a visit and give you the advice of a father.”
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“I thank the great spirit,” Lafayette proclaimed, “for bringing me to this place to bring me back to my children, who now gather around this fire to smoke the pipe of peace and friendship together. If you remember the voice of Kayewla, remember, too, his counsel and the necklaces that he often sent you. . . . I now say to you, the American cause is just; it is your cause. . . . Be wiser than the white man, keep the peace among yourselves . . . trade with the Americans . . . such trade will become for you a sign of a new alliance.”
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After he finished, Mohawk chief Ocksicanechiou stood and addressed Lafayette: “My father, we have heard your words and rejoice that you have visited your children to give them your wise advice. . . . You have done us much good . . . we sense that your words are those of truth. . . . They will strengthen the chain of friendship that we hope will live forever.”
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With that, he placed a necklace of peace around Lafayette—a necklace that French general Montcalm, whom the British defeated at Quebec, had given him as a symbol of French friendship, twenty-five years earlier. Lafayette displayed it to the assembled chiefs, then removed it and placed it back on the chief’s neck. Lafayette’s gesture awed the entire gathering. “He was the only conspicuous figure there,” Madison wrote of Lafayette. “The commissioners were eclipsed. All of them probably felt it. [Arthur] Lee complained to me.”
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The good feelings that Lafayette engendered climaxed with his offering to take Peter Otisquette, a half-French Oneida boy, to France to educate him to lead his nation and negotiate shrewdly with white nations. Although Otisquette’s family agreed, they preferred postponing his departure for a year, and an Onondaga family sent their twelve-year-old boy, Kayenlaha, with him instead.

Lafayette’s party left the next day, but the conference continued for nearly three weeks. The goodwill he established produced a treaty in which the Americans recognized Indian sovereignty in western New York, except at Forts Oswego and Niagara, and the Indian nations granted Americans sovereignty over lands between Lake Erie and the Ohio River.

After an easy boat trip down the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers, Madison and Lafayette parted reluctantly. They had grown close, with Lafayette confiding to Madison that his “three hobby horses are the alliance between France and the United States, the union of the latter and the manumission of the slaves.” Madison wrote to his close friend Jefferson that Lafayette’s concern for the slaves “does him real honor, as it is a proof of his humanity.”
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Lafayette renewed his American tour with a stop at Hartford, where the assembly declared him and his family honorary citizens. He sent an overdue
letter to Jefferson, who was a widower and had taken his oldest daughter, twelve-year-old Patsy, with him to Paris. “When I heard of your going to France, I heartily lamented I could not have the honour to receive you there. . . . My house, dear sir, my family, and any thing that is mine are entirely at your disposal, and I beg you will come and see Mde de Lafayette as you would act by your brother’s wife. Her knowledge of the country may be of some use to Miss Jefferson whom she will be happy to attend in every thing that may be agreeable to her. Indeed my dear sir, I would be very angry with either you or she did not consider my house as a second home.”
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Lafayette wrote to Adrienne, appointing her “mother, chaperone, and anything else you can think of” to Patsy Jefferson. “I beg you to take them under your wing and to do all you can for them. . . . The father, an admirable, cultivated, and charming man overwhelmed me with kindnesses when he was governor of Virginia during the war, and I very much hope that he may like France well enough to replace Mr. Franklin.”
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