Quitting England, he traversed France with secrecy and despatch to join his vessel, which was at a Spanish port, beyond French jurisdiction. His departure came like a bolt upon the English Court, which he had just left, also upon the French Court, which was not yet prepared for a break with England, and upon his most affectionate family, who were planning for him a tour in Italy, which in his busy life he never made; but his young wife, who suffered most, loved him too well not to partake his sentiments and to approve his generous resolution, even though it separated him from her. To illustrate the general sensation, I quote the words of the historian Gibbon, in a letter dated April 12, 1777. “We talk chiefly of the Marquis de Lafayette, who was here a few weeks ago. He is about twenty, with an hundred and thirty thousand livres a year, the nephew of Noailles, who is ambassador here. He has bought the Duke of Kingston’s yacht, and is gone to join the Americans.[55] His family interfered by peremptory command, and the French Government interfered by that arbitrary mandate, under seal of the King, known as _lettre-de-cachet_,--but, disregarding the one and evading the other, in the disguise of a courier, our devoted ally traversed the Pyrenees, and soon found himself with his companions in arms on board his vessel, which, on the 26th of April, 1777, set sail for America. Undertaking this enterprise at a time when the sea and all beyond were little known, the youthful adventurer showed a heart of “triple oak.” Our admiration is enhanced, when we recall the charms of country, rank, and family left behind,--with perils of capture and war braved even before reaching the land,--and especially when we contemplate the motive in which this enterprise had its origin. Rarely has hero gone forth on so beautiful an errand; for he carried words of cheer to our fathers, then in despairing struggle for the Great Declaration, and opened the way for those fleets and armies of France soon after marshalled on our side; nor is it too much to say, that he was the good angel of Independence. His family correspondence, which has seen the light only since his death, exhibits his beautiful fidelity and the completeness of his dedication to our cause. In a letter to his distinguished father-in-law, announcing his purpose, he says of American interests, that they “will always be more dear to him than his own,” and then declares himself “at the height of joy at having found so fine an occasion to do something and to improve himself.”[56] In a letter to his wife, written on the voyage, under date of June 7, 1777, his sympathy with the great objects of the national contest is tenderly revealed. “I hope, for my sake,” he writes, in words worthy of everlasting memory, “that you will become a good American. This is a sentiment proper for virtuous hearts. Intimately allied to the happiness of the whole Human Family is that of America, destined to