Page:A French Volunteer of the War of Independence.djvu/113

Rh fected him alone. He had inserted in the English papers, which were read at New York, a paragraph to the effect that the Marquis de la Fayette had been very well received at the Court of St. James, but a very short time before his departure for America, and therefore it was base ingratitude on his part to play the Don Quixote, and help the colonists in their rebellion against their sovereign. The Marquis de la Fayette felt personally insulted by this, and deemed himself justified in demanding satisfaction. A messenger was sent with a flag of truce to carry the challenge, but though the noble lord could not have thought this opponent beneath him in rank, he contented himself with replying that he would leave the quarrel to be settled by Admiral Howe and Comte d'Estaing. My lord was well known in the fashionable circles of London, and we therefore caused to be inserted in the papers, that he was nothing more than a young dandy, who wore rouge and