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"The money was transported with sixteen ox teams to the National bank at Philadelphia, which enabled our army to move to Yorktown to attack in conjunction with the French army under Rochambeau, the British army under Cornwallis. "As I never had a single cent for these services, I felt myself entitled, as the country is now in a state of prosperity, to state the case to congress.
Lord Cornwallis affected being indisposed, in order that he might not march out at the head of his troops: they passed between two rows of the American and French army, commanded by General O'Hara, and surrendered their arms at the order of General Lincoln. Each of the generals, Washington, Rochambeau, and Lafayette, sent as aide-de-camp to offer their compliments to Lord Cornwallis.
At sixty he defeated Eugène, and by his successes enabled France to conclude honorably a most disastrous war. Rochambeau was in his fifty-seventh year when he acted with Washington at Yorktown, in a campaign that established our existence as a nation. The Spanish army of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, down to the date of the Battle of Rocroi, stood very high.
Washington urged Commodore des Touches, who by de Ternay's death had been left in command of the French squadron at Newport, to interrupt these proceedings, by dispatching a strong detachment to Chesapeake Bay; and he asked Rochambeau also to let some troops accompany the naval division, to support the scanty force which he himself could spare to Virginia.
Look in with us one moment, now that the party is over, and the busy hum of voices and blaze of lights has died down to midnight silence and darkness; we make you clairvoyant, and you may look through the walls of this stately old mansion, still known as that where Rochambeau held his head-quarters, into this room, where two wax candles are burning on a toilette table, before an old-fashioned mirror.
"Yes; I have to tell you" Narcissus turned towards his brother "that during your absence another of the prisoners has found his discharge the old Admiral." "Dead?" "He died this morning: but you knew, of course, it was only a question of days. Rochambeau was with him at the last. He has shown great devotion." "You have made all arrangements, of course?"
Here he found awaiting him a French frigate from the United States, bearing despatches from Washington and Rochambeau, upon which he was to take the most momentous action that fell to any French admiral during the war.
This letter was delivered afterwards to M. de Rochambeau, as well as several others, which want of space and interest do not allow us to insert. Camp at Preakness, July 4th, 1780.
Lafayette was deaf to this proposal, and answered, that General Washington and the corps of General Rochambeau would soon arrive, and that it was far better to hasten their movements than act without them; and, by making a murderous attack, shed a great deal of blood from a feeling of vanity and a selfish love of glory; that they were certain, after the arrival of the succours, of taking the hostile army by a regular attack, and thus spare the lives of the soldiers; which a good general ought always to respect as much as possible, especially in a country where it was so difficult to obtain others to replace those who fell.
On my being introduced to General B r, he immediately entered into conversation with me concerning Lord Cornwallis, whom he had known in the American war, having served in the staff of Rochambeau at the siege of Yorktown. As far back as that period B r signalized himself by his skill in military science.
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