I would not have you imagine, Miss, that I write you so often to gratify your wishes or please your vanity; but merely to indulge myself, and to comply with that restless propensity of my mind which will not be happy unless I am doing something in which you are concerned.  This may seem a very idle disposition in a philosopher and a soldier, but I can plead illustrious examples in my justification.  Achilles liked to have sacrificed Greece and his glory to a female captive, and Anthony lost a world for a woman.  I am very sorry times are so changed as to oblige me to go to antiquity for my apology, but I confess, to the disgrace of the present time, that I have not been able to find as many who are as far gone as myself in the laudable Zeal of the fair sex.  I suspect, however, if others knew the charm of my sweetheart as I do, I could have a great number of competitors.  I wish I could give you an idea of her.  You can have no conception of how sweet a girl she is.  It is only in my heart that her image is truly drawn.  She has a lovely form and still more lovely mind.  She is all goodness, the gentlest, the dearest, the tenderest of her sex.  Ah, Betsey, how I love her!

His reiterated demand for a foreign loan, and the sending of a special envoy to obtain it, at last wrung a reluctant consent from Congress.  Lafayette was his politic suggestion, and Congress would have indorsed it, but that adventurous young hero had not come to America to return and beg money on his own doorstep.  There was a prospect of fighting in the immediate future, and he was determined to add to his renown.  The choice then lay between Hamilton and Laurens, who had received the thanks of Congress for his distinguished services in the field, and whose father had been a president of that body.  Lafayette and all the Frenchmen were anxious that the mission be given to Hamilton.  The former went to Philadelphia and talked to half the Congress.  He offered Hamilton private letters which would introduce him to the best society of Europe; adding, “I intend giving you the key of the cabinet, as well as of the societies which influence them.”

Laurens, by this time, was eager to go.  His father, who had started for Holland as Minister Plenipotentiary, had been captured by the British and confined in the Tower of London; the foreign mission would give him an opportunity to attempt his liberation.  Moreover, life was very dull at present, and he knew himself to be possessed of diplomatic talents.  But he was also aware of Hamilton’s ardent desire to visit Europe, all that it would mean to that insatiate mind, his weariness of his present position.  Washington would give his consent to the temporary absence of Hamilton, for the French money was the vital necessity of the Republic’s life, and he knew that his indomitable aide would not return without it Therefore Laurens wrote to Hamilton, who was in Albany awaiting his wedding-day, that he should resign in his favour, and congratulated him on so brilliant and distinguished a honeymoon.