With Americans of Past and Present Days - Jusserand Jean Jules - Страница 22

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[38] July 8, 1781.

[39] April 13, 1781. (Rochambeau papers.)

[40] July 14, 1781.

[41] In June, 1867, by S.A. Green, who printed it with an English translation: My Campaigns in America, a journal kept by Count William de Deux-Ponts, Boston, 1868.

[42] The house at the entrance of the Pont-Neuf, where the Petit Dunkerque was established, being then the most famous "magasin de frivolites" in existence, survived until July, 1914. The sign of the shop, a little ship with the inscription, "Au Petit Dunkerque," was still there. It has been preserved and is now in the Carnavalet Museum.

[43] Washington's joy was in proportion to the acuteness of his anxieties; only three days before he was writing to Lafayette: "But, my dear marquis, I am distressed beyond expression to know what has become of Count de Grasse, and for fear that the English fleet, by occupying the Chesapeake, toward which, my last accounts say, they were steering, may frustrate all our prospects in that quarter.... Adieu, my dear marquis; if you get anything new from any quarter, send it, I pray you, on the spur of speed, for I am almost all impatience and anxiety." Philadelphia, September 2, 1781.

[44] September 7, 1781.

[45] Graves had rightly supposed that, to have been able to start so quickly, de Grasse must have caused some of his ships to cut their anchors' cables, marking the spot with buoys. The two frigates had been sent to gather those buoys, and were bringing several as a prize to the English admiral, when they were captured. (Journal Particulier, by Count de Revel, sublieutenant in the regiment of "Monsieur-Infanterie," p. 131.) On the 15th of September Washington wrote to de Grasse: "I am at a loss to express the pleasure which I have in congratulating your Excellency ... on the glory of having driven the British fleet from the coast and taking two of their frigates."

[46] History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1787, by Lieutenant-Colonel Tarleton, commandant of the late British Legion, Dublin, 1787, pp. 403 ff.

[47] A minute "Journal of the Siege" was kept by Mr. de Menonville, aide major-general, a translation of which is in the Magazine of American History, 1881, VII, 283.

[48] The city of Gloucester consisted of "four houses on a promontory facing York," but very well defended by trenches, ditches, redoubts, manned by a garrison of 1,200 men. (Count de Revel, Journal Particulier, p. 171.) A detailed account of the Gloucester siege is in this journal. Choisy "had previously won a kind of fame by his defense of the citadel of Cracow, in Poland." (Ibid., p. 139.)

[49] As early as 1796, when La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt visited it, the city, formerly a prosperous one, had become a borough of 800 inhabitants, two-thirds of which were colored. "The inhabitants," says the traveller, "are without occupation. Some retail spirits or cloth; some are called lawyers, some justices of the peace. Most of them have, at a short distance from the town, a small farm, which they go and visit every morning, but that scarcely fills the mind or time; and the inhabitants of York, who live on very good terms with each other, occupy both better in dining together, drinking punch, playing billiards; to introduce more variety in this monotonous kind of life, they often change the place where they meet.... The name of Marshal de Rochambeau is still held there in great veneration." Voyage dans les Etats-Unis, Paris, "An VII," vol. VI, p. 283.

[50] Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States, Philadelphia, 1812, II, 343. In the same spirit Pontgibaud notes that the British army laid down its arms "to the noble confusion of its brave and unfortunate soldiers." Memoires du Comte de More (Pontgibaud), 1898, p. 104.

[51] Same good feeling on the Gloucester side. After the surrender, "les officiers anglais vinrent voir nos officiers qui etaient de service, leur firent toutes les honnetetes possible, et burent a leur sante." (Revel, Journal Particulier, p. 168.) The British fleet appeared only on the 27th of October, at the entrance of the capes; thirty-one sails were counted on that day and forty-four on the next; after the 29th they were no longer seen. "Nous avons su depuis," Revel writes, "que l'Amiral Graves avait dans son armee le general Clinton, avec des troupes venues de New York pour secourir lord Cornwallis. Mais il etait trop tard; la poule etait mangee, et l'un et l'autre prirent le parti de s'en retourner." (Ibid., p. 178.)

[52] The work of Gabriel Brizard, a popular writer in his day: Fragment de Xenophon, nouvellement trouve dans les ruines de Palmyre par un Anglois et depose au Museum Britannicum—Traduit du Grec par un Francois, Paris, 1783.

[53] General Eliott, later Lord Heathfield, defender of Gibraltar, well known in France not only as an enemy, but as a former pupil of the military school at La Fere.

[54] Mathieu-Dumas availed himself of his stay in Boston before sailing to go and visit, with some of his brother officers, several of the heroes of independence—Hancock, John Adams, Doctor Cooper: "We listened with avidity to the latter, who, while applauding our enthusiasm for liberty, said to us: 'Take care, take care, young men, that the triumph of the cause on this virgin soil does not influence overmuch your hopes; you will carry away with you the germ of these generous sentiments, but if you attempt to fecund them on your native soil, after so many centuries of corruption, you will have to surmount many more obstacles; it cost us much blood to conquer liberty; but you will shed torrents before you establish it in your old Europe.' How often since, during our political turmoils, in the course of our bad days, did I not recall to mind the prophetic leave-taking of Doctor Cooper. But the inestimable prize which the Americans secured in exchange for their sacrifices was never absent from my thought." (Souvenirs du Lieutenant-General Comte Mathieu-Dumas, publies par son fils, I, 108.) The writer notices the early formation of a "national character, in spite of the similitude of language, customs, manners, religion, principles of government with the English." (Ibid., 113.)

[55] ?uvres, 1865, I, 12.

[56] To Robert Livingston, Passy, March 4, 1782.

[57] To Archibald Cary, June 15, 1782.

[58] White marble; signed and dated, Richard Hayward, London, 1773.

[59] Memoires du Comte de More (formerly Chevalier de Pontgibaud), 1898, p. 56; first ed., Paris, 1827, one of Balzac's ventures as a printer.

[60] October 8, 1782. This letter, as well as the addresses, in the Rochambeau papers.

[61] A large bowl from the original set is preserved in the National Museum (Smithsonian Institution) at Washington. It bears only the monogram and not the family arms. The wreath is of roses with a foliage which may be laurel.

[62] Memoires, souvenirs et anecdotes, I, 402.

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