S MARCHANDS, September 27, 1786

TO THE PREVOT DES MARCHANDS ET ECHEVINS DE PARIS.

Paris, September 27, 1786.

Gentlemen,

The commonwealth of Virginia, in gratitude for the services of Major
General the Marquis de la Fayette, have determined to erect his bust in
their Capital. Desirous to place a like monument of his worth, and of
their sense of it, in the country to which they are indebted for his
birth, they have hoped that the city of Paris will consent to become the
depository of this second testimony of their gratitude. Being charged by
them with the execution of their wishes, I have the honor to solicit of
Messieurs le Prevot des Marchands et Echevins, on behalf of the city,
their acceptance of a bust of this gallant officer, and that they will
be pleased to place it where, doing most honor to him, it will most
gratify the feelings of an allied nation.

It is with true pleasure that I obey the call of that commonwealth, to
render just homage to a character so great in its first developements,
that they would honor the close of any other. Their country covered by
a small army against a great one, their exhausted means supplied by his
talents, their enemies finally forced to that spot whither their allies
and confederates were collecting to receive them, and a war which had
spread its miseries into the four quarters of the earth thus reduced
to a single point, where one blow should terminate it, and through the
whole, an implicit respect paid to the laws of the land; these are facts
which would illustrate any character, and which fully justify the warmth
of those feelings, of which I have the honor, on this occasion, to be
the organ.

It would have been more pleasing to me to have executed this office in
person, to have mingled the tribute of private gratitude with that of my
country, and, at the same time, to have had an opportunity of presenting
to your honorable body, the homage of that profound respect which I have
the honor to bear them. But I am withheld from these grateful duties,
by the consequences of a fall, which confine me to my room. Mr. Short,
therefore, a citizen of the State of Virginia, and heretofore a member
of its Council of State, will have the honor of delivering you this
letter, together with the resolution of the General Assembly of
Virginia. He will have that, also, of presenting the bust at such time
and place, as you will be so good as to signify your pleasure to receive
it. Thr