The situation in regard to Lafayette was as follows: Some time during the year 1775, the young Marquis who was then scarcely eighteen, and who was serving under the Comte de Broglie at the garrison of Metz, was present at a dinner given in the fortress where the English Duke of Gloucester was guest. The latter was bitterly opposed to the policy of George III in regard to America, and at table spoke freely of the uprising among the colonists; it was then, so Lafayette tells us in his memoirs, that he formed the resolution of offering his services to the insurgents. Through the intervention of De Broglie, the Baron von Kalb, a Prussian general serving in France, introduced to Silas Deane on November 5, 1776, the young marquis with two of his cousins who had formed the same determination to offer their services to America. Silas Deane received them with enthusiasm, and promised all high positions in the American Army (see _Doniol_ Vol. II, p. 63). Eleven other officers were added and the entire group were to sail from Havre on _La Seine_, one of the fleet of Hortalès et Cie. when the order already spoken of, came from the government to prevent further operations of the house. Moreover, a special prohibition was issued regarding the young officers, because it was of great importance for the French Government to seem to oppose the enlistment of such prominent members of the high nobility as Lafayette and his colleagues. Nothing daunted, Lafayette, whose fortune made him independent, bought a vessel of his own, _La Victoire_, and having decided “to go in spite of everything and without regard to consequences” secretly negotiated with Deane, and set sail, April 20, 1777, with some twenty other commissioned officers. The agreement which had been drawn up between them was signed by Lafayette, the Baron von Kalb, and Silas Deane; it bore the date of December 7, 1776, although it was not really issued until February, 1777. This discrepancy was owing to the fact that since the arrival of Franklin in December, Deane’s commission had changed in nature, so that he no longer was empowered to enlist officers for the American service. The date of December 7, 1776 had been chosen because on that day the two noblemen had been presented to the American Commissioner and an informal engagement entered into. This was immediately before the arrival of Franklin in France.