dared to publish that General Washington
and all the general officers of his army, being in a boat together,
had been upset and every individual drowned."

Years afterwards when Lafayette, then an elderly man, revisited our
country, he referred to his wound in these gracious words: "The honor
to have mingled my blood with that of many other American soldiers on
the heights of the Brandywine has been to me a source of pride and
delight."

After a few days it was thought wise to take the wounded Lafayette to
a quieter place. So Henry Laurens, the President of Congress, who
happened to be passing on his way to York, Pennsylvania, whither
Congress had removed, took him in his traveling carriage to Bethlehem,
where dwelt a community of Moravians, in whose gentle care Lafayette
was left for the four wearisome weeks of convalescence.

"Be perfectly at ease about me," he wrote Adrienne. "All the faculty
in America are engaged in my service. I have a friend who has spoken
to them in such a manner that I am certain of being well attended to;
that friend is General Washington. This excellent man, whose talents
and virtues I admired, and whom I have learned to revere as I have
come to know him better, has now become my intimate friend; his
affectionate interest in me instantly won my heart. I am established
in his house and we live together like two attached brothers with
mutual confidence and cordiality."

Again Lafayette writes: "Our General is a man formed in truth for this
revolution, which could not have been accomplished without him. I see
him more intimately than any other man, and I see that he is worthy of
the adoration of his country.... His name will be revered in every age
by all true lovers of liberty and humanity."

At last Lafayette was well enough to go into service again. He
requested permission this time to join General Greene who was making
an expedition into New Jersey in the hope of crippling the force of
Lord Cornwallis. Lafayette was given command of a detachment of three
hundred men, and with these he reconnoitered a situation Lord
Cornwallis was holding at Gloucester opposite Philadelphia. Here he
came so near to the English that he could plainly see them carrying
provisions across the river to aid in the projected taking of the
city, and he so heedlessly exposed himself to danger that he might
easily have been shot or imprisoned if the English had been alert. By
urgent entreaty he was called back. A