The English commissioner, as Washington had anticipated, declined the challenge upon public grounds, adding: “In my opinion such national disputes may be best settled by the fleets under Admiral Byron and the Count d’Estaing.” About this time La Fayette wrote from his camp to Washington, as follows:— “Give me joy, my dear General: I intend to have your picture. Mr. Hancock has promised me a copy of the one he has in Boston. He gave one to Count d’Estaing, and I never saw a man so glad at possessing his sweetheart’s picture as the admiral was to receive yours.” To these fond words Washington thus replied:— “The sentiments of affection and attachment which breathe so conspicuously in all your letters to me are at once pleasing and honorable, and afford me abundant cause to rejoice at the happiness of my acquaintance with you. Your love of liberty, the just sense you entertain of this valuable blessing, and your noble and disinterested exertions in the cause of it, added to the innate goodness of your heart, conspire to render you dear to me; and I think myself happy in being linked with you in bonds of the strictest friendship. “The ardent zeal which you have displayed during the whole course of the campaign to the eastward, and your endeavors to cherish harmony among the officers of the allied powers, and to dispel those unfavorable impressions which had begun to take place in the minds of the unthinking, from misfortunes which the utmost stretch of human foresight could not avert, deserved, and now receive, my particular and warmest thanks. “Could I have conceived that my picture had been an object of your wishes, or in the smallest degree worthy of your attention, I should, while Mr. Peale was in camp at Valley Forge, have got him to take the best portrait of me he could, and presented it to you; but I really had not so good an opinion of my own worth as to suppose that such a compliment would not have been considered as a greater instance of my vanity, than means of your gratification; and therefore, when you requested me to sit to Monsieur Lanfang, I thought it was only to obtain the outlines and a few shades of my features, to have some prints struck from.” Reports now reached La Fayette that the French ministry were planning an attack upon England; whereupon he wrote to the Duke d’Ayen:— “I should consider myself as almost dishonored if I were not present at such a moment. I should feel so much regret and shame, that I should be tempted to drown or hang myself, according to the English mode. My greatest happiness would be to drive them from this country, and then to repair to England, serving under your command.” Feeling that his presence was now required in France, and that he could there best serve America, La Fayette solicited from Congress a leave of absence, that he might return to his own country. General Washington sent the following letter to the President of Congress by La Fayette:—