Note 13 — FOURTH CONGRESS.—SECOND SESSION. (continued 7)

The resolution offered by Mr. Harper contemplated an official interposition in behalf of Lafayette—a grave proceeding, which President Washington had well considered beforehand, and maturely decided against. But unofficially he had been exerting himself to procure the release, or to mitigate the fate of the illustrious captive. A confidential person had been sent to Berlin to solicit his discharge, his first captivity being in Prussia; but before the arrival of the messenger the well-guarded prisoner had been turned over to the Emperor of Germany. Mr. Thomas Pinckney, the American Minister in London, had been instructed to make known the wishes of the President to the Austrian Minister at that place, and the British Ministry had been solicited to take an interest in the application: but all in vain. As a last attempt, and at the moment of ceasing to be President, he addressed a private letter to the Emperor of Austria, couched in noble and feeling terms, in which he solicited that Lafayette might be allowed to come to the United States. The letter said: "I forbear to enlarge upon this delicate subject. Permit me only to submit to your majesty's consideration, whether his long imprisonment, and the confiscation of his estate, 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 deem it expedient to prescribe." This touching appeal remained without effect; and the romantic effort of Dr. Bollman having failed to save Lafayette, after snatching him from the dungeon of Olmutz, it remained for the glittering sword of the conqueror of Italy to command what the noble letter of Washington failed to obtain. After the Treaty of Campo Formio, an aid-de-camp of the then young General Buonaparte proceeded to Vienna—asked the release of Lafayette—and obtained it. The Emperor, Francis the Second, might have appeared more gracefully in the transaction, if he had yielded the release to the letter of Washington.