ine 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,'"

In his journey through New England, not being able to get lodgings at an
inn, Washington spent a night in a private house, and when all payment was
refused, he wrote his host from his next stopping-place,--

"Being informed that you have given my name to one of your sons, and
called another after Mrs. Washington's family, and being moreover very
much pleased with the modest and innocent looks of your two daughters,
Patty and Po