Island, announced, on the 13th of July, the arrival of the French
squadron to Washington, who was then stationed with his staff at
Bergen. M. de Lafayette set out instantly, bearing instructions from
the general-in-chief dated the 15th, to meet the French Generals and
to concert with them. Washington had long formed a plan of offensive
operations, for the reduction of the town and garrison of New York
(letter to General Greene the 14th of July); this plan was to take
effect on condition, first, that the French and American troops should
form a junction; second, that the French should have a decided naval
superiority over the united forces of Admiral Graves and Admiral
Arbuthnot. In nine letters, written between the 20th of July and the
1st of August, which would not perhaps have offered much interest to the
reader, M. de Lafayette rendered an account of his mission, of which a
short analysis will give the principal details.
The first letters relate to the multiplied difficulties he encountered
in the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island, in collecting provisions,
clothing, arms, and, above all, powder, in sufficient quantities for
the projected expedition. These difficulties were much increased by the
insufficiency of every kind of munition brought by the French squadron,
which but half realized the promises of the French cabinet. M. de
Lafayette repaired to Newport the 25th, and found the army, which had
been disembarked, encamped in Rhode Island, and M. de Rochambeau much
occupied by the news of an important attack, and, in fact, four of the
enemy's ships appeared on the 19th, and nine or ten more two days after,
before Block Island. Sir Henry Clinton had on his side left New York.
By a combination of his land and sea forces, he intended to surprise
the French army. But he experienced some delay; his soldiers could
only embark in the transports the 27th; there was a wrong understanding
between him and Admiral Arbuthnot. He learnt that the French had
fortified themselves at Newport, and that the neighbouring militia had
joined them; and at length that General Washington was making a rapid
movement upon New York. He hastened to pass over the Sound, and landed
his troops on the 31st.
M. de Lafayette, who had always felt doubtful, himself, of Clinton's
making the attack, had then the opportunity of discussing with the
allies the project for an offensive operation. He was extremely anxious
to put it into execution, and General Washington was desirous also of
doing the same.
The thing was, however, difficult. Although the capture of New York had
always been one of the objects of the French ministry, the instructions
of M. de Rochambeau prescribed to him to attach great importance to the
station of Rhode Island, and to endeavour to make it the basis for his
other operations. He was therefore reluctant to quit it in order to
march upon New York. M. de Ternay, at the same time, considered it as
impossible to enter with his ships of war into the harbour of that town,
and contented himself with promising a blockade; he did not, besides,
possess that naval superiority which could only be obtained by the
arrival of the second division, which was so vainly expected from
France, or by the junction of the squadron of M. de Guichen, then in the
West Indies, to whom M. de Lafayette had written to promote that object.
M. de Rochambeau's own opinion was, however, in favour of offensive
measures, and he promised to conform, according to his instructions,
to the orders of the general-in-chief. Everything was discussed and
regulated in two or three conferences, which took place from the end
of July to the commencement of August, between MM. de Rochambeau, de
Ternay, and de Lafayette. The result of these conferences is resumed in
a letter, to which is annexed this note--
In the suppressed letters it is also seen that the French troops evinced
the greatest ardour, and that the good intelligence that reigned between
the two allies completely justified the expectations of M. de Lafayette,
and the measures he had proposed. He wrote, in a letter of the 31st, to
General Washington:--
"The French army hate the idea of staying here, and want to join you.
They swear at those that speak of waiting the second division: they
are enraged to be blockaded in this harbour. As to their dispositions
towards the inhabitants and our troops, and the dispositions of the
inhabitants and the militia for them, they are such as I may wish. You
would have been glad the other day to see two hundred and fifty of our
drafts that came on from Connanicut, without provisions and tents, and
who were mixed in such a way with the French troops, that every French
soldier and officer took an American with him, and divided his bed and
his supper in the most friendly manner. The patience and sobriety of our
militia are so much admired by the French officers, that, two days ago,
a French colonel called all his officers together, to take the good
examples which were given to the French soldiers by the American troops.
So far are they gone in their admiration, that they find a great deal to
say in favour of General Varnum, and his escort of militia dragoons,
who fill up all the streets of Newport. On the other band, the French
discipline is such, that chickens and pigs walk between the tents
without being disturbed, and that there is in the camp a corn-field, of
which not one leaf has been touched. The Tories don't know what to say to
it."--(ORIGINAL.)--(_Letters of Washington from the 14th of July to the
5th of August, 1780, and Appendix, Nos. 1 and 8_, VOL. vii.)
FROM THE COUNT DE ROCHAMBEAU TO M. DE LAFAYETTE.
Newport, August 12th, 1780.
I received, my dear marquis, the letter you did me the honour of writing
the 9th of August; permit me to send you, in reply, the one I had
the honour of addressing to our general on the 10th of this month, to
express to him the opinion you asked for by his desire. I am only now,
therefore, waiting for his last orders, and I have earnestly requested
him to grant me the favour of an interview, that the admiral and I may
receive from his own lips the last plan he has decided upon; we should
do more in a quarter of an hour's conversation than we could do by
multiplied despatches. I am as thoroughly convinced as any person can
be of the truth of what your letters mentioned, that it was his marching
which had detained Clinton, who intended to come and attack us; but I
must observe to you also, at the same time, that there was much reason
to hope that he would have been well beaten here, and during that time
our general would have taken New York. As to your observation, my dear
marquis, that the position of the French at Rhode Island is of no use to
the Americans, I reply:--
First, That I never heard it had been injurious to any one of them.
Second, That it would be well to reflect that the position of the French
corps may have had something to do with Clinton's evacuation of the
continent, when he has been obliged to confine himself to Long Island
and New York; that, in short, while the French fleet is guarded here
by an assembled and a superior naval force, your American shores are
undisturbed, your privateers are making considerable prizes, and your
maritime commerce enjoys perfect liberty. It appears to me, that, in so
comfortable a situation, it is easy to wait patiently the naval and land
forces that the king assured me should, be sent; that, in short, as
I have received no letter from France since my departure; I can only
flatter myself that the second division is already on the road, and
is bringing me despatches, since, if it had been blockaded by superior
forces, some sort of advice would have been sent me from the shores of
France. I fear those savannahs and other events of the kind, of which I
have seen so many during the course of my life. There exists a principle
in war, as in geometry, _vis unita fortior_. I am, however, awaiting
orders from our generalissimo, and I entreat him to grant the admiral
and myself an interview. I will join the latter's despatch to this
packet as soon as I receive it.
I beg you to accept, my dear marquis, the assurance of my sincerest
affection.
TO MM. DE ROCHAMBEAU AND DE TERNAY.
Camp, August 18th, 1780.
GENTLEMEN,--As I wish to submit the same observations to you both,
permit me to address this letter to you in common, and permit me also
(without pretending to complain of the interpretation you have given to
my last letter) to accuse myself of having explained my own meaning in a
very awkward manner.
On my return here, gentlemen, General Washington asked me for an account
of our conversations. You know that he had given me full powers to
explain to you our situation, and to settle finally the plan of the
campaign. When he knew that you wished to confer with him, he again
wrote me word that I was to arrange everything in his name, as if he
were himself present. It was natural that he should wish to know what I
said to you, what you replied, and what we had finally decided upon. He
thought that the best manner of collecting our ideas was to write
them down; and I, fearing to say a single word that was not precisely
according to your intentions, thought it more polite, more respectful
towards you, to submit to your examination the written account which
my general had requested. I may add, at this place, gentlemen, that the
general, thinking that you were only acquainted with our position from
what I had the honour of saying to you, did not consider the previous
letters he had received as answers to what I had undertaken to explain
to you. All that I said to you, gentlemen, concerning Rhode Island, the
passage of Hell Gate, the harbour of New York, and the disembarkation,
was from the reiterated orders of General Washington; and as to the
political opinions, which I will dispense myself with expressing in
future, because they must come from the Chevalier de la Luzerne, I,
assure you that if, as your own countryman, it was more delicate for me
to give them in my own name, they are not less conformable to the ideas
of General Washington. The only time when I took the liberty of speaking
for myself was, when, wearied by the questions that have been made to
me by a thousand American individuals upon the second division, and
the superiority of the English at this present period, I yielded to my
ardent wish of entering at once on action, and to the hope of commencing
our operations immediately. If I have been to blame, I think it can only
be in this one instance.
I believe that the march towards New York has recalled Clinton from the
bay of Huntington, but I believe that if he had been guilty of the folly
of attacking you, he would have both lost at Rhode Island a portion of
his army, owing to our French troops, and the Island of New York by our
attack. This was my opinion, and the one I found most prevalent here,
and I also think that it is very unfortunate for the common cause that
General Clinton did not pursue his enterprise. Is it I who could
imagine the contrary?--I who have always been laughed at for thinking it
impossible that the French could ever be beaten!
When, after having received three letters from General Washington, and
held twenty conversations with him on the subject, I thought it proper
to tell you in what point of view we looked upon Rhode Island, I do
not think it ever occurred to me to say you had injured any person by
staying there, and as to the advantage America derives from having a
French squadron and French troops, allow me to mention, gentlemen, that
M. d'Estaing found me formerly well disposed to acknowledge this
truth; that for more than eighteen months, and especially since the
commencement of last summer, I held a regular correspondence with the
French government, to represent to it the utility of such a measure;
and, although the gratitude of the Americans does not by any means
require being excited, few hours pass without my employing a part of
my time in pointing out to them the advantages that you may procure for
them even when inferior to the hostile forces, and in which I do not
take the measures most proper to publish this truth from the extremity
of Canada to that of Florida, as I may prove to you by the few copies of
letters which I have preserved.
As to the political opinions with which I took the liberty of closing my
letter, although I acknowledge having committed the fault of expressing
them to you, I am certain beforehand that, from an intimate acquaintance
with the American character and resources, the Chevalier de la Luzerne
and General Washington are both of my opinion.
I will do all that depends upon me, gentlemen, to prevail upon the
general to meet you half way; but, from his proximity to the enemy, and
from the present situation of the army, which he has never quitted since
the commencement of the war, I fear it will appear to him very difficult
to absent himself. Whenever you have any orders to give me, look upon
me as a man who, you must well know, idolizes his own country with
a peculiar degree of enthusiasm, and who unites to that feeling (the
strongest one of his heart) the respectful affection with which he has
the honour of being, &c.
TO M. DE ROCHAMBEAU.
Camp, August 18th, 1780.
Having written, sir, one letter to you in common with the Chevalier de
Ternay, permit me to address myself to you with the frankness authorised
by the warm affection I have felt, and endeavoured to prove to you, from
my earliest youth. Although your letter expresses your usual kindness
for me, I observed a few sentences in it which, without being
individually applied to me, prove to me that my last epistle displeased
you. After having been engaged night and day for four months, in
preparing the minds of the people to receive, respect, and love you;
after all I have said to make them sensible of the advantages they
derived from your residence at Rhode Island, and after having made use
of my own popularity to propagate this truth; in short, sir, after
all that my patriotism and affection for you have dictated to me, my
feelings were unavoidably hurt by your giving such an unfavourable turn
to my letter, and one which had never for a moment occurred to myself.
If in that letter I have offended or displeased you; if, for example,
you disapprove of that written account which General Washington asked
for, and which I thought I ought to submit to you, I give you my word
of honour that I thought I was doing a very simple thing; so simple,
indeed, that I should have considered I was wronging you by not doing
it.
If you had heard that second division spoken of, sir, as I have done; if
you knew how strongly the English and the Tories endeavour to persuade
the Americans that France only wishes to kindle, without extinguishing
the flame, you would readily conceive that my desire of silencing those
reports might have inspired me, perhaps, with too much warmth. I will
confide to you that, thus placed in a foreign country, my self love is
wounded by seeing the French blockaded at Rhode Island, and the pain I
feel induces me to wish the operations to commence. As to what you write
to me, sir, respecting Rhode Island, if I were to give you an account of
all I have said, written, and inserted in the public papers; if you
had heard me, frequently in the midst of a group of American peasants,
relating the conduct of the French at Newport; if you were only to pass
three days here with me, you would see the injustice of your reproach.
If I have offended you, I ask your pardon, for two reasons; first,
because I am sincerely attached to you; and secondly, because it is my
earnest wish to do everything I can to please you here. As a private
individual, in all places your commands will ever be laws to me, and for
the meanest Frenchmen here I would make every possible sacrifice
rather than not contribute to their glory, comfort, and union with the
Americans. Such, sir, are my feelings, and although you have imagined
some which are very foreign to my heart, I forget that injustice to
think only of my sincere attachment to you.
P.S. I am far from thinking, sir, that I am in any degree the cause of
the sentiments that are experienced in this country for yourself and the
officers of your army. I am not so vain as to have entertained such an
idea; but I have had the advantage of knowing you, and I was, therefore,
able to foresee what would occur on your arrival, and to circulate
the opinions adopted by all those who have personally known you. I
am convinced, and no one here can deny it, that but for your arrival,
American affairs would have gone on badly this campaign; but, in our
present situation, this alone is not sufficient, and it is important to
gain advantages over the enemy. Believe, that when I wrote in _my own
name_, that opinion did not belong to myself alone; my only fault was
writing with warmth, in an official manner, that which you would have
forgiven on account of my youth, if I had addressed it as a friend
to yourself alone; but my intentions were so pure, that I was as much
surprised as pained by your letter, and that is saying a great deal.
FROM M. DE ROCHAMBEAU.
Newport, August 27th, 1780.
Permit an aged father, my dear marquis, to reply to you as he would do
to a son whom he tenderly loves and esteems. You know me well enough to
feel convinced that I do not require being excited, that when I, at
my age, form a resolution founded upon military and state reasons, and
supported by circumstances, no possible instigation can induce me to
change my mind without a positive order from my general. I am happy
to say that his despatches, on the contrary, inform me that my ideas
correspond substantially with his own, as to all those points which
would allow us to turn this into an offensive operation, and that
we only differ in relation to some small details, on which a slight
explanation, or his commands, would suffice to remove all difficulties
in an instant. As a Frenchman, you feel humiliated, my dear friend, at
seeing an English squadron blockading in this country, with a decided
superiority of frigates and ships, the Chevalier de Ternay's squadron;
but console yourself, my dear marquis, the port of Brest has been
blockaded for two months by an English fleet, and this is what
prevents the second division from setting out under the escort of M. de
Bougainville. If you had made the two last wars, you would have heard
nothing spoken of but these same blockades; I hope that M. de Guichen,
on one side, and M. de Gaston, on the other, will revenge us for these
momentary mortifications.
It is always right, my dear marquis, to believe that Frenchmen are
invincible; but I, after an experience of forty years, am going to
confide a great secret to you: there are no men more easily beaten when
they have lost confidence in their chiefs, and they lose it instantly
when their lives have been compromised, owing to any private or
personal ambition. If I have been so fortunate as to have retained
their confidence until the present moment, I may declare, upon the most
scrupulous examination of my own conscience, that I owe it entirely to
this fact, that, of about fifteen thousand men who have been killed
or wounded under my command, of various ranks, and in the most bloody
actions, I have not to reproach myself with having caused the death of a
single man for my own personal advantage.
You wrote to the Chevalier de Chastellux, my dear marquis, that the
interview I requested of our general has embarrassed him, because it
only becomes necessary after the arrival of the second division,
when there will be quite time enough to act. But you must surely have
forgotten that I have unceasingly requested that interview immediately,
and that it is absolutely necessary that he, the admiral, and I, should
concert together all our projects and details, that in case one of
the three chances should occur and enable us to act offensively, our
movements may be prompt and decisive. In one of these three cases, my
dear marquis, you will find in your old prudent father some remnants of
vigour and activity. Be ever convinced of my sincere affection, and
that if I pointed out to you very gently what displeased me in your last
despatch, I felt at the time convinced that the warmth of your heart
had somewhat impaired the coolness of your judgment. Retain that latter
quality in the council-room, and reserve all the former for the hour of
action. It is always the aged father, Rochambeau, who is addressing his
dear son Lafayette, whom he loves, and will ever love and esteem until
his latest breath.
TO THE CHEVALIER DE LA LUZERNE.
Robinson House, opposite W. Point, Sept. 26, 1780.
When I parted from you yesterday, sir, to come and breakfast here with
General Arnold, we were far from foreseeing the event which I am now
going to relate to you.~[1]
You will shudder at the danger to which we have been exposed; you will
admire the miraculous chain of unexpected events and singular chances
that have saved us; but you will be still more astonished when you learn
by what instruments this conspiracy has been formed. West Point was
sold--and sold by Arnold: the same man who formerly acquired glory by
rendering such immense services to his country. He had lately entered
into a horrible compact with the enemy, and but for the accident that
brought us here at a certain hour, but for the combination of chances
that threw the adjutant-general of the English army in the hands of some
peasants, beyond the limits of our stations, West Point and the North
River, we should both at present, in all probability, be in possession
of the enemy.
When we set out yesterday for Fishkill, we were preceded by one of my
aides-de-camp, and one of General Knox's, who found General Arnold and
his wife at breakfast, and sat down at table with them. Whilst they were
together, two letters were given to Arnold, which apprised him of the
arrestration of the spy. He ordered a horse to be saddled, went into his
wife's room to tell her he was ruined, and desired his aide-de-camp
to inform General Washington that he was going to West Point and would
return in the course of an hour.
On our arrival here, we crossed the river and went to examine the works.
You may conceive our astonishment when we learnt, on our return, that
the arrested spy was Major André, adjutant-general of the English army;
and when amongst his papers were discovered the copy of an important
council of war, the state of the garrison and works, and observations
upon various means of attack and defence, the whole in Arnold's own hand
writing.
The adjutant-general wrote also to the general, avowing his name and
situation. Orders were sent to arrest Arnold; but he escaped in a
boat, got on board the English frigate the _Vulture_, and as no person
suspected his flight, he was not stopped at any post. Colonel Hamilton,
who had gone in pursuit of him, received soon after, by a flag of truce,
a letter from Arnold to the general, in which he entered into no details
to justify his treachery, and a letter from the English commander,
Robertson, who, in a very insolent manner, demanded that the
adjutant-general should be delivered up to them, as he had only acted
with the permission of General Arnold.
The first care of the general has been to assemble, at West Point, the
troops that, under various pretences, Arnold had dispersed. We remain
here to watch over the safety of a fort, that the English may respect
less as they become better acquainted with it. Continental troops have
been summoned here, and as Arnold's advice may determine Clinton to make
a sudden movement, the army has received orders to be prepared to march
at a moment's warning.
Footnote: