Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette by Lafayette

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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 Andre, 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:

1. The project of an expedition against New York had not been
abandoned: it was still canvassed by letter. General Washington agreed
with the French generals as to the, necessity of waiting for a naval
reinforcement. The latter insisted upon having a conference with the
General and M. de Lafayette. (See especially Washington's Letter of the
21st August, vol. vii. p. 169.) That long deferred conference was at
length granted, and it was fixed that it should take place at Hartford
(Connecticut). Washington left his army the 18th of September. It will
be recollected that it was his interview with Arnold at the passage of
the Hudson, that induced the latter to take the steps which led to the
discovery of the conspiracy. (See above.) Some days after, M. de
Rochambeau wrote thus to M. de Lafayette:--

"Providence has declared itself for us, my dear marquis,--and that
important interview, which I have so long wished for, and which has
given me so much pleasure, has been crowned by a peculiar mark of the
favour of Heaven. The Chevalier de la Luzerne has not yet arrived; I
took the liberty of opening your letter to him, in which I found all
the details of that horrible conspiracy, and I am penetrated with
mingled feelings, of grief at the event itself, and joy at its
discovery.

TO MADAME DE TESSE.

Camp, on the right side of the North River, near the Island of New
York, October 4th, 1780.

A French frigate arriving from America,--the son of M. de Rochambeau on
board! Good God, what a commotion all that will excite, and how much
trouble inquisitive people will take to discover the secrets of the
ministers. But I, my dear cousin, will confide to you our secret. The
French army has arrived at Rhode Island, and has not quitted that spot.
M. de Ternay's seven vessels have been blockaded the whole time, and
the English have nineteen vessels here under that lucky commander,
Rodney. We Americans, without money, without pay, and without
provisions, by holding out fair promises, have succeeded in forming an
army, which has been offering to fight a battle with the English for
the last three months, but which cannot without vessels reach the
island of New York. Gates, who was no favourite of mine, has become
still less so since he has allowed himself to be beaten in the south.
But all this is quite as monontonous as a European war, and
catastrophes are necessary to excite and sustain the interest of men.

You must know, then, my cousin, that a certain General Arnold, of some
reputation in the world, was our commander at West Point, a fort on the
North River, whose importance the Duke d'Ayen will explain to you.
General Washington and I, returning from Hartford, where we had held a
conference with the French generals, discovered a conspiracy of the
highest importance. We owe that discovery to an almost incredible
combination of accidents. West Point was sold by Arnold, and we were
consequently lost. The traitor has fled to join the enemy.

I received letters from you by the fleet, and by the Alliance, and I am
impatiently expecting more recent ones. The nation will not be pleased
with the state of tranquillity in which we remain. But as we have no
ships, we can only wait for the enemy's blows, and General Clinton does
not appear in any haste to attack us. As to ourselves, we republicans
preach lectures to our sovereign master, the people, to induce him to
recommence his exertions. In the mean while we practise so much
frugality, and are in such a state of poverty and nudity, that I trust
an account will be kept in the next world, whilst we remain in
purgatory, of all we have suffered here.

Poircy~[1] is here, and although he does not find a St. Germain in this
part of the world, he accustoms himself extremely well, I assure you,
to a soldier's life. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all
the news you gave me. Although they afforded me the greatest pleasure,
I scarcely dare reply to them, from the fear that my answers may appear
to come from another world. I saw in the paper that the King of Spain
was dead: has God, then, punished him for having conferred the title of
grandee upon M. de Montbarrey?

I need not tell you that I am in good health, for that is, you know, my
usual custom. My situation here is as agreeable as possible. I am in
high favour, I believe, with the French army: the American army shew me
every possible kindness and attention. I have the command of a flying
corps, composed of the elite of the troops. My friend General
Washington continues to be everything to me that I before described to
you.

Adieu, my dear cousin. When shall I again see you? I pray that God may
grant us an honourable peace, and that I may embrace my friends, and I
willingly, for my own part, will give up my share of the glory in the
hope eventually to win.

Present my affectionate regards to M. de Tesse, M. de Mun, M. Tenai,
and the baron;~[2] I was on the point of saying, embrace his daughter
for me.

Footnotes:

1. Secretary. The Marshal de Noailles had a house at Saint Germain.

2. The Baron de Tott.

TO MADAME DE LAFAYETTE.

Near Fort Lee, opposite Fort Washington, on the North River, Oct. 7th,
1780.

You must have already learnt, my dearest love, all that can interest
you relating to myself, from my arrival at Boston until my voyage to
Rhode Island, which place public affairs, and the desire of seeing my
friends, induced me to visit soon after my landing. I have been since
to Hartford in Connecticut, to be present at an interview between the
French generals and General Washington: of all my young friends, Damas
~[1] was the only one who accompanied us. The viscount~[2] and I often
write to each other, but we do not meet, and the poor man remains shut
up in Rhode Island; the French squadron detains the army there, and is
itself detained by nineteen ships of the line and sundry other ships of
war, upon which M. Rodney proudly exhibits the British colours. So long
as our naval inferiority lasts, you need feel no anxiety about the
health of your friends in America.

I must speak to you, however, about my health; it continues excellent,
and has not been interrupted for a single moment; a soldier's mode of
living is extremely frugal, and the general officers of the rebel army
fare very differently from the French army at Newport. You have
probably heard that, on my arrival in America, I found the army of
General Washington very weak in numbers, and still more so in
resources. Our prospects were not brilliant, and the loss of Charleston
was for us a most heavy blow, but the desire of co-operating with their
allies gave new vigour to the states. General Washington's army
increased more than half in number, and more than ten thousand militia
were added to it, who would have come forward if we had acted
offensively. Associations of merchants and patriotic banks were formed
to supply the army with subsistence. The ladies made, and are still
making, subscriptions, to afford succour to the soldiers. When that
idea was first proposed, I made myself your ambassador to the ladies of
Philadelphia, and you are inscribed on the list for a hundred guineas.
General Gates had in the south an army quite sufficient for defence;
but he has been completely beaten in Carolina. The fruit of all these
labours has been, to prove to the French that the Americans desire
nothing better than to second their views upon England, to prove to the
English that the flame of liberty was not wholly extinguished in
America, and to keep us, during the whole campaign, in daily
expectation of a battle, which General Clinton, although equal to us in
number, has never thought proper to accept. If we had only had ships,
we should have been enabled to do a great deal more.

As I know that all that interests me deeply is also interesting to you,
I will tell you that we are much occupied by an important system, which
would secure to us a considerable army during the whole war, and would
bring into action all the resources which America is capable of making.
God grant that the nation may understand its true interests, and our
affairs will go on without difficulty!

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