Washington did not like France; he did not share the hopes which some of his fellow-countrymen founded upon her aid; he made no case of the young volunteers who came to enroll themselves among the defenders of independence, and whom Congress loaded with favors.  “No bond but interest attaches these men to America,” he would say; “and, as for France, she only lets us get our munitions from her, because of the benefit her commerce derives from it.”  Prudent, reserved, and proud, Washington looked for America’s salvation to only America herself; neither had he foreseen nor did he understand that enthusiasm, as generous as it is unreflecting, which easily takes possession of the French nation, and of which the United States were just then the object.  M. de La Fayette was the first who managed to win the general’s affection and esteem.  A great yearning for excitement and renown, a great zeal for new ideas and a certain political perspicacity, had impelled M. de La Fayette to America; he showed himself courageous, devoted, more judicious and more able than had been expected from his youth and character.  Washington came to love him as a son.

It was with the title of major-general that M. de La Fayette made his first campaign; Congress had passed a decree conferring upon him this grade, rather an excess of honor in Washington’s opinion; the latter was at that time covering Philadelphia, the point aimed at by the operations of General Howe.  Beaten at Brandywine and at Germantown, the Americans were obliged to abandon the town to the enemy and fall back on Valley Forge, where the general pitched his camp for wintering.  The English had been beaten on the frontiers of Canada by General Gates; General Burgoyne, invested on all sides by the insurgents, had found himself forced to capitulate at Saratoga.  The humiliation and wrath of the public in England were great, but the resolution of the politicians was beginning to waver; on the 10th of February, 1778, Lord North had presented two bills whereby England was to renounce the right of levying taxes in the American colonies, and was to recognize the legal existence of Congress.  Three commissioners were to be sent to America to treat for conditions of peace.  After a hot discussion, the two bills had been voted.

This was a small matter in view of the growing anxiety and the political manoeuvrings of parties.  On the 7th of April, 1778, the Duke of Richmond proposed in the House of Lords the recall of all the forces, land and sea, which were fighting in America.  He relied upon the support of Lord Chatham, who was now at death’s door, but who had always expressed himself forcibly against the conduct of the government towards the colonists.  The great orator entered the House, supported by two of his friends, pale, wasted, swathed in flannel beneath his embroidered robe.  He with difficulty dragged himself to his place.  The peers, overcome at the sight of this supreme effort, waited in silence.  Lord Chatham