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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO THOMAS JEFFERSON, SECRETARY OF STATE. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. XII (1790-1794) [1891]

Edition used:

The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890). Vol. XII (1790-1794).

Part of: The Writings of George Washington, 14 vols.

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TO THOMAS JEFFERSON, SECRETARY OF STATE.

Dear Sir,

The returned draft of a letter to Mr. Gouverneur Morris accords with my sentiments,1 taking it for granted that the words “we suppose this will rather overpay the instalments and interest due on the loans of eighteen, six, and ten millions,” mean all that could be demanded by the French government to the close of last year; this being the idea I have entertained of the payments and engagements.

If it has not been done in a former letter, it would be agreeable to me, that Mr. Morris should be instructed to neglect no favorable opportunity of expressing, informally, the sentiments and wishes of this country respecting the Marquis de Lafayette; and I pray you to commit to paper, in answer to the enclosed letter from Madame de Lafayette to me, all the consolation I can with propriety give, consistent with my public character and the national policy, circumstanced as things are. My last and only letter to her is herewith sent, that you may see what has been written heretofore. I am, &c.1

[1 ]Jefferson to Morris, 12 March, 1793.

[1 ]Lafayette was made the subject of a separate letter to Morris, dated 15 March, 1793, and a similar one was sent to Pinckney.

“I have still to sympathize with you on the deprivation of the dearest of all your resources of happiness, in comparison with which others vanish. I do it in all the sincerity of my friendship for him, and with ardent desires for his relief; in which sentiment I know that my fellow citizens participate.

“The measures, you were pleased to intimate in your letter, are perhaps not exactly those, which I could pursue; perhaps, indeed, not the most likely, under actual circumstances, to obtain our object; but be assured, that I am not inattentive to his condition, nor contenting myself with inactive wishes for his liberation. My affection to his nation and to himself are unabated, and notwithstanding the line of separation, which has been unfortunately drawn between them, I am confident that both have been led on by a pure love of liberty, and a desire to secure public happiness; and I shall deem that among the most consoling moments of my life, which should see them reunited in the end, as they were in the beginning, of their virtuous enterprise.”—Washington to the Marchioness de Lafayette, 16 March, 1793.