LA FAYETTE (Gilbert Du Motier de). Autograph... Lot 51

LA FAYETTE (Gilbert Du Motier de). Autograph letter signed to Samuel Howe. Château de La Grange-Bléneau [near Courpalay in the present-day département of Seine-et-Marne], July 19, 1832. 1/3 p. in-4, address on back; folds split, red wax seal with profile of George Washington added later to address leaf. SUPPORT FOR THE POLISHES AFTER THE FAILURE OF THE INSURRECTION AGAINST THE RUSSIAN TUTEL (November 1830-September 1831). When Poland rose up in an attempt to shake off the Russian yoke, it aroused a wave of sympathy in the West, first in support of its war effort and then to help emigrants who had to leave their defeated homeland. In January 1831, General de La Fayette founded a "Central Committee in favor of the Poles" in Paris, which was imitated in several other French cities, such as Lyon with the very active "Polish Bazaar" set up in the summer of 1831. The "American Polish Committee" was also founded in Paris, on the initiative of writer Fenimore Cooper (a friend of Adam Mickiewicz), physician Samuel Howe and inventor Samuel F. B. Morse, with fund-raising in New York. "My dear doctor, you are so zealous, and you have been so serviceable to the cause and to the heroes of Poland, that you are the proper, and I may say the official channel for everything that concerns them. The Polish medal struck by the patriotic Bazar of Lyons is finished; it is to be wished the friends of Poland may encourage this honorable mark of their sympathy. It is through their friendly hands that their lives, a sort of duplicate of what I have already mentioned, will be transmitted to you. I shall only add the grateful regards of your affectionate friend La Fayette " PHILANTHROPE AND ARdent DEFENDER OF FREEDOMS, AMERICAN SAMUEL HOWE (1801-1876) began life as a surgeon in the United States Navy, but, as an admirer of Lord Byron, joined the Greeks in their war of liberation against the Ottomans as a physician and military officer. He then resumed his medical studies, notably in Paris, where he took part in the July Revolution (1830) and became involved in aiding the Polish rebels: sent to liaise with Polish officers, he was arrested and imprisoned in Berlin. Returning to the United States, he worked in an institution for the blind and campaigned for the abolition of slavery. ATTACHED: FOUCHE (Joseph). Autograph letter signed. Brussels, October 16 [1815]. - EINSIEDEL (Detlev von). Autograph letter signed. Dresden, January 17, 1816.