When she and her daughters joined her husband in prison, Lafayette’s son, and Washington’s godson, came to America; an arrival of which the godfather wrote that, “to express all the sensibility, which has been excited in my breast by the receipt of young Lafayette’s letter, from the recollection of his father’s merits, services, and sufferings, from my friendship for him, and from my wishes to become a friend and father to his son is unnecessary.”  The lad became a member of the family, and a visitor at this time records that “I was particularly struck with the marks of affection which the General showed his pupil, his adopted son of Marquis de Lafayette.  Seated opposite to him, he looked at him with pleasure, and listened to him with manifest interest.”  With Washington he continued till the final release of his father, and a simple business note in Washington’s ledger serves to show both his delicacy and his generosity to the boy:  “By Geo. W. Fayette, gave for the purpose of his getting himself such small articles of Clothing as he might not choose to ask for $100.”  Another item in the accounts was three hundred dollars “to defray his exps. to France,” and by him Washington sent a line to his old friend, saying, “this letter I hope and expect will be presented to you by your son, who is highly deserving of such parents as you and your amiable lady.”

Long previous to this, too, a letter had been sent to Virginia Lafayette, couched in the following terms: 

“Permit me to thank my dear little correspondent for the favor of her letter of the 18 of June last, and to impress her with the idea of the pleasure I shall derive from a continuance of them.  Her papa is restored to her with all the good health, paternal affection, and honors, which her tender heart could wish.  He will carry a kiss to her from me (which might be more agreeable from a pretty boy), and give her assurances of the affectionate regard with which I have the pleasure of being her well-wisher,

George Washington.”

In this connection it is worth glancing at Washington’s relations with children, the more that it has been frequently asserted that he had no liking for them.  As already shown, at different times he adopted or assumed the expenses and charge of not less than nine of the children of his kith and kin, and to his relations with children he seldom wrote a letter without a line about the “little ones.”  His kindnesses to the sons of Ramsay, Craik, Greene, and Lafayette have already been noticed.  Furthermore, whenever death or illness came among the children of his friends there was sympathy expressed.  Dumas relates of his visit to Providence with Washington, that “we arrived there at night; the whole of the population had assembled from the suburbs; we were surrounded by a crowd of children carrying torches, reiterating the acclamations of the citizens; all were eager to approach the person of him whom they called their father, and pressed so closely around us that they hindered us from proceeding.  General Washington was much affected, stopped a few moments, and, pressing my hand, said, ’We may be beaten by the English; it is the chance of war; but behold an army which they can never conquer,’”