MEMOIRS CORRESPONDENCE AND MANUSCRIPTS OF GENERAL LAFAYETTE
By Lafayette
Published By His Family.
Entered according to the act of Congress, in the year 1837,
by William A. Duer,
In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York.
Respectfully to collect and scrupulously to arrange the manuscripts of which an irreparable misfortune has rendered them depositaries, have been for the Family of General Lafayette the accomplishment of a sacred duty.
To publish those manuscripts without any commentary, and place them, unaltered, in the hands of the friends of Liberty, is a pious and solemn homage which his children now offer with confidence to his memory.
GEORGE WASHINGTON LAFAYETTE.
ADVERTISEMENT OF THE AMERICAN EDITOR.
It was the desire of the late General Lafayette, that this edition of his Memoirs and Correspondence should be considered as a legacy of the American people. His representatives have accordingly pursued a course which they conceived the best adapted to give effect to his wishes, by furnishing a separate edition for this country, without any reservation for their own advantage, beyond the transfer of the copyright as an indemnity for the expense and risk of publication.
In this edition are inserted some letters which will not appear in the editions published in Paris and London. They contain details relating to the American Revolution, and render the present edition more complete, or, at least, more interesting to Americans. Although written during the first residence of General Lafayette in America—when he was little accustomed to write in the English language—the letters in question are given exactly as they came from his pen—and as well as the others in the collection written by him in that language are distinguished from those translated from the French by having the word "Original" prefixed to them.
It was intended that these letters should have been arranged among those in the body of the work; in the order of their respective dates; but as the latter have been stereotyped before the former had been transmitted to the American editor, this design was rendered impracticable. They have therefore from necessity been added in a supplemental form with the marginal notes which seemed requisite for their explanation.
Columbia College, N. Y., July, 1837.
CONTENTS
FIRST VOYAGE AND FIRST CAMPAIGN IN AMERICA 1777-1778.
FRAGMENTS EXTRACTED FROM VARIOUS MANUSCRIPTS.~{1}
A. — DEPARTURE FOR AMERICA IN 1777.