Lafayette, Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de | A scarce Revolutionary War-date letter from Lafayette to Alexander Hamilton

Lafayette, Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de

Autograph letter signed ("Lafayette) as Major General of the Continental Army, to Alexander Hamilton

One page (230 x 167 mm). "Light Camp" [near Cranestown, now Montclair, New Jersey], 30 October 1780, docketed on the verso "30 Octr. 1780 | Delafayette | Copied." Half red morocco slipcase, chemise; housed with engraved portraits of Lafayette and Hamilton.

Lafayette asks his friend and aide-de-camp to General Washington to intercede on behalf of a French Canadian officer. "There is a Canadian officer who tho by his Manners and adrs. he does not engage much in his favor, has however an undoubted Right to our Notice—what he asks as to his subsistence is I think just, and if America can't without ingratitude Refuse subsistence to those Canadians she has persuaded out of their Native Country, how much more is it necessary to utilize those who are or have been in her service—I wish therefore that an order for a Coms[?] hence and an order for provisions when at Albany be given to lieutenant pepin unless he is again to join some regiment." In a postscript Lafayette adds, "I send you all his papers." 

The officer referred to is almost certainly Andrew Pepin, a captain of militia in Canada. Pepin, a native of France, was a zealous advocate of the American cause and was given a commission in the First Canadian Regiment, an Extra Continental regiment, raised by James Livingston during the invasion of Quebec. Pepin seems to have made several petitions to the Board of War for back pay and rations, as well as requesting a posting with the regular Continental Army. He clearly must have sought the help of his countryman, Lafayette, in receiving what he thought was due him. Lafayette, in turn, was eager for French Canadians to make common cause with the Americans and here forwarded Pepin's request to Hamilton. 

Despite their close friendship and extensive correspondence, war-date letters from Lafayette to Hamilton are very uncommon on the market. Only two others are cited in the auction records, the most recent of which was sold in 1993. 

PROVENANCE

C. F. Libbie, 12 December 1895, lot 312 — Heritage, 11 May 2017, lot 47013

REFERENCE

Celebration of My County 87; not in Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution: Selected Letters and Papers, ed. Idzerda, but calendared in vol. 3 from its appearance in the Libbie auction catalogue