expressed a wish to enter the American army on the condition of serving
without pay or emolument, and on the footing of a volunteer. These
conditions removed the chief obstacles alluded to in reference to the
appointment of foreign officers; the letters brought by Lafayette made
known to Congress his high connections, and his large means of
usefulness, and without an hour's delay he received from them a
commission of major-general in the American army, a month before he was
twenty years of age.

Washington was at headquarters when Lafayette reached Philadelphia, but
he was daily expected in the city. The introduction of the youthful
stranger to the man on whom his career depended was therefore delayed a
few days. It took place in a manner peculiarly marked with the
circumspection of Washington, at a dinner party, where Lafayette was
one among several guests of consideration. Washington was not
uninformed of the circumstances connected with his arrival in the
country. He knew what benefit it promised the cause if his character
and talents were adapted to the cause he had so boldly struck out, and
he knew also how much it was to be feared that the very qualities which
had prompted him to embark in it, would make him a useless and even a
dangerous auxiliary. We may well suppose that the piercing eye of the
Father of his Country was not idle during the repast. But that
searching glance, before which pretense or fraud never stood
undetected, was completely satisfied. When they were about to separate,
Washington took Lafayette aside, spoke to him with kindness, paid a
just tribute to the noble spirit which he had shown, and the sacrifices
he had made in the American cause, invited him to make the headquarters
of the army his home, and to regard himself at all times as one of the
family of the Commander-in-Chief.