"It will readily occur to your Majesty that occasions may sometimes exist, on which official considerations would constrain the chief of a nation to be silent and passive, in relation to objects which affect his sensibility, and claim his interposition as a man. Finding myself precisely in this situation at present, I take the liberty of writing this private letter to your Majesty, being persuaded that my motives will also be my apology for it. "In common with the people of this country, I retain a strong and cordial sense of the services rendered to them by the Marquis de Lafayette; and my friendship for him has been constant and sincere. It is natural, therefore, that I should sympathize with him and his family in their misfortunes, and endeavor to mitigate the calamities which they experience; among which, his present confinement is not the least distressing. "I forbear to enlarge on this delicate subject. Permit me only to submit to your Majesty's consideration whether his long imprisonment and the confiscation of his estates, and the indigence and dispersement of his family, and the painful anxieties incident to all these circumstances, do not form an assemblage of sufferings which recommend him to the mediation of humanity? Allow me, Sir, to be its organ on this occasion; and to entreat that he may be permitted to come to this country, on such conditions and under such restrictions as your Majesty may think fit to prescribe. "As it is a maxim with me not to ask what under similar circumstances I would not grant, your Majesty will do me the justice to believe that this request appears to me to correspond with those great principles of magnanimity and wisdom, which form the basis of sound policy and durable glory. "May the Almighty and merciful Sovereign of the universe keep your Majesty under his protection and guidance!" Little by little the place where Lafayette was imprisoned became known to a few, and public sentiment was aroused to the point of bringing up the matter before the British Parliament. It was a certain General Fitzpatrick who, strange to say, had met Lafayette in London before he went to America, and again between battles when they were ranged on opposite sides of the Revolution, who now brought up the question. Twice he made a motion in favor of acting for the release of Lafayette. Fitzpatrick was the kind of man who could not bear to entertain the idea that there should exist "in any corner of British soil, in any English heart, conceptions so narrow as to wish to see the illustrious pupil of Washington perishing in a dungeon on account of his political principles." General Fitzpatrick's motion was seconded by General Tarleton, who had fought Lafayette through the length and breadth of Virginia. Pitt and Burke spoke against it.