He had made himself one in thought and spirit with the most aggressively American of them all. A witty speech of his proves this. A bill had been introduced in Congress to present him with two hundred thousand dollars in money and "twenty-four thousand acres of fertile land in Florida" to right a wrong unintentionally done him years [Pg 270]before. He had been entitled at the time of our Revolution to the pay of an officer of his rank and to a grant of public land to be located wherever he chose. He refused to accept either until after the Revolution in France had swept away his fortune. Then his agent in the United States chose for him a tract of land near New Orleans which Jefferson thought would be of great value. Congress was not informed and granted this same land to the city. Lafayette had a prior claim, but flatly refused to contest the matter, saying he could have no quarrel with the American people. Everybody wanted the bill concerning this reparation in the way of money and Florida land to pass, and it was certain to go through, but there were twenty-six members of the House and Senate who, for one reason and another, felt constrained to vote against it. Some voted consistently and persistently against unusual appropriations of any kind; some argued that it was an insult to translate Lafayette's services into terms of cold cash. The struggle between private friendship and public duty was so hard that some of them came to make a personal explanation. "My dear friends!" he cried, grasping their hands, "I assure you it would have been different had I been a member of Congress. There would not have been twenty-six objectors--there would have been twenty-seven! " During this American visit he renewed old ties with, or made the acquaintance of, nine men who had been or were to become Presidents of the United States: John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, [Pg 271]William Henry Harrison, Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor, and Franklin Pierce. Perhaps there were others. He broke the rules of the Puritan Sabbath by driving out to dine on that day with the venerable John Adams at his home near Boston; but there was only one white horse to draw his carriage instead of the customary four, and not a hurrah broke the orderly quiet. Had it been a week-day the crowds would have shouted themselves hoarse. Jefferson, ill and feeble, welcomed him on the lawn at Monticello, the estate so dear to him which had been ravaged by the British about the time Lafayette began his part in driving Cornwallis to Yorktown.