Beschreibung:

LAFAYETTE, Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de (1757-1834). Autograph letter signed ("Lafayette") to [John Adams?], Chavaniac, 27 July 1783. 1 page, 4to, inlaid to a larger leaf . LAFAYETTE DECLARES BRITISH "THE NATURAL ENEMIES TO AMERICA" Lafayette, back in France at the close of the Revolution, writes about the possibility of obtaining loans from European treasuries, and reflects on the enduring enmity between Britain and America: "...Since we could not get money here, I am glad it has been found in Holland. Mr. Hartley's dissatisfaction, if sincere, arises from a disposition in Great Britain I have long forseen. Time, I fear, will prove those people are not to be confided in, and for ever I take them to be Natural enemies to America. Inclosed you will find a paper...which contains two letters that I earnestly beg you to have forwarded to American printers..." David Hartley was the man tapped by George III to negotiate the peace treaty with the Americans, and he was Britain's signatory on the Treaty of Paris. Lafayette returned to France after Yorktown in September 1781, but was gearing up for more action in 1783. Named the quarter-master general of a combined Franco-Spanish expeditionary force earlier that year, the news of the peace treaty convinced him he could better serve the American cause by helping the new republic find foreign loans. When Jefferson took over for Franklin as ambassador, he was overwhelmed by Lafayette's generous expenditure of energy on behalf of his second country: "He made our cause his own," Jefferson said. "In truth, I only held the nail; he drove it."