Meanwhile came tidings of melancholy reverses which followed the Declaration of Independence, and of the scanty forces of Washington tracking the snow with bloody feet, as they retreated through New Jersey,--seeming to announce that all was lost. The American Commissioners frankly confessed that they could not encourage Lafayette to proceed with his purpose. But his undaunted temper was quickened anew, and when they told him that with their damaged credit it was impossible to provide a vessel for his conveyance, he exclaimed: “Thus far you have seen my zeal only; now it shall be something more. I will purchase and equip a vessel myself. It is while danger presses that I wish to join your fortunes.” Noble words, worthy of immortality, and never to be heard without a throb by an American heart! Before embarking, Lafayette, partly to mask his enterprise, and also in the hardihood of courage, visited England, where his wife’s uncle, the French ambassador, presented him to George the Third, who, unconscious of his purpose, said, “I hope you mean to stay some time in Britain”; to which he answered, that it was not in his power. “What obliges you to leave us?” asked the King. “Please your Majesty,” said our new ally, “I have a very particular engagement; and if your Majesty were aware of it, you would not desire me to stay.” During this visit everything was open to the youthful soldier, and he was even invited to attend the review of British troops about to embark for America. From instinctive delicacy he declined, thinking it not right to take advantage of a hospitable invitation to inspect troops against whom he was about to array himself in war. “But,” he added, in relating this incident, “I met them six months after at the Brandywine.”