There could have been no better place for a wounded man to recover his strength than in the peaceful little Moravian community at Bethlehem. For six weeks he stayed there, and the people tended him like one of themselves. He could not use his leg, but he spent part of his enforced idleness drawing up plans for the invasion of the British colonies in the West Indies. He also wrote long letters to his wife in France. “Be entirely free from anxiety as to my wound,” he said in one of these, “for all the doctors in America are aroused in my behalf. I have a friend who has spoken for me in a way to ensure my being well taken care of; and that is General Washington. That estimable man, whose talents and whose virtues I admired before, whom I venerate the more now as I learn to know him, has been kind enough to me to become my intimate friend. His tender interest in me quickly won my heart.... When he sent his surgeon-in-chief to me, he directed him to care for me as I were his son, because he loved me so much; and having learned that I wanted to join the army too soon again, he wrote me a letter full of tenderness in which he admonished me to wait until I should be entirely well.” Wonderful it was that Washington, beset and harassed with all the burdens of a commander-in-chief, could yet find the time to pay so much attention to his wounded French aid! Lafayette knew well that matters looked dark then for the American republic. In another letter to Adrienne he said, “Now that you are the wife of an American general officer, I must give you a lesson. People will say, ‘They have been beaten.’ You must answer, ‘It is true, but with two armies equal in number, and on level ground, old soldiers always have an advantage over new ones; besides, the Americans inflicted a greater loss than they sustained.’ Then, people will add, ‘That’s all very well; but Philadelphia, the capital of America, the highroad of liberty, is taken.’ You will reply politely, ‘You are fools! Philadelphia is a poor city, open on every side, of which the port was already closed. The presence of Congress made it famous, I know not why; that’s what this famous city amounts to, which, by the way, we shall retake sooner or later.’ If they continue to ply you with questions, send them about their business in terms that the Vicomte de Noailles will supply you with.”