It was partly this buoyant, merry spirit that made Lafayette win all hearts. To the army he was now no stranger. His broken English was becoming more and more understandable. But words were not necessary; the look in his eyes said that he was a fearless and sincere man; that he had not come to this country to "show off," but from a true love for the principles for which he had offered his sword. Never was there a more complete adoption than that of Lafayette by the American army. Lafayette's first care on reaching Philadelphia was to write to Adrienne lest she should receive exaggerated news concerning his wound. "It was a mere trifle," he wrote. "All I fear is that you should not have received my letter. As General Howe is giving in the meantime rather pompous details of his American exploits to the king his master, if he should write word that I am wounded, he may also write word that I am killed, which would not cost him anything; but I hope that my friends, and you especially, will not give faith to reports of those persons who last year dared to publish that General Washington and all the general officers of his army, being in a boat together, had been upset and every individual drowned." Years afterwards when Lafayette, then an elderly man, revisited our country, he referred to his wound in these gracious words: "The honor to have mingled my blood with that of many other American soldiers on the heights of the Brandywine has been to me a source of pride and delight." After a few days it was thought wise to take the wounded Lafayette to a quieter place. So Henry Laurens, the President of Congress, who happened to be passing on his way to York, Pennsylvania, whither Congress had removed, took him in his traveling carriage to Bethlehem, where dwelt a community of Moravians, in whose gentle care Lafayette was left for the four wearisome weeks of convalescence. "Be perfectly at ease about me," he wrote Adrienne. "All the faculty in America are engaged in my service. I have a friend who has spoken to them in such a manner that I am certain of being well attended to; that friend is General Washington. This excellent man, whose talents and virtues I admired, and whom I have learned to revere as I have come to know him better, has now become my intimate friend; his affectionate interest in me instantly won my heart. I am established in his house and we live together like two attached brothers with mutual confidence and cordiality." Again Lafayette writes: "Our General is a man formed in truth for this revolution, which could not have been accomplished without him. I see him more intimately than any other man, and I see that he is worthy of the adoration of his country.... His name will be revered in every age by all true lovers of liberty and humanity."