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Updated: May 23, 2025
Lecointre, deputy of Versailles, who had seen what had passed on the 5th and 6th of October, Hebert, who had frequently visited the Temple, various clerks in the ministerial offices, and several domestic servants of the old Court were summoned.. Admiral d'Estaing, formerly commandant of the guard of Versailles; Manuel, the ex-procureur of the Commune; Latour-du-Pin, minister of war in 1789; the venerable Bailly, who, it was said, had been, with La Fayette, an accomplice in the journey to Varennes; lastly, Valaze one of the Girondists destined to the scaffold, were taken from their prisons and compelled to give evidence.
It was now the middle of May, and little more was done till September, when D'Estaing returned from the West Indies. On the 23d Savannah was invested by the combined forces of Lincoln and D'Estaing, and the siege was vigorously carried on for a fortnight. Then the French admiral grew impatient.
Perhaps, too, it will be in the power of the count to do something which might satisfy them. I wish, my dear general, you could know as well as myself, how desirous the Count d'Estaing is to forward the public good, to help your success, and to serve the cause of America.
In the Channel and Bay of Biscay, the first year of war passed quietly. Lord Howe, commanding the British Channel fleet, had behind him a long, fine record as a disciplinarian and tactician; he had fought with Hawke at Quiberon Bay, protected New York and Rhode Island against d'Estaing in 1778, and later thrown relief into Gibraltar in the face of superior force.
The last mark of attention with which the court honoured M. de Lafayette, had been an order to arrest him in the West Indies; he was, in truth, out of favour in that quarter, and their displeasure had increased on receiving his letters, which were dictated less by the prudence of a philosopher than by the enthusiasm of a young lover of liberty: but although no letters were addressed to him, M. d'Estaing was not less kind and attentive in his conduct; and 2000 continentalists having been despatched from White-Plains to Providence, M. de Lafayette, who had exerted himself to hasten their departure, conducted them rapidly along the sound, across a smiling country, covered with villages, in which the evident equality of the population distinctly proved the democracy of the government.
Soon after his arrival in the bay fortune disconcerted all his plans. A furious storm drove him out to sea and damaged his fleet so much that he found it necessary to put into Newport to refit. This favorable moment was seized by the Count D'Estaing who sailed on the 3d of November for the West Indies. Thus terminated an expedition from which the most important advantages had been anticipated.
The French, who may measure with us in folly, and have exceeded us in ridiculous boasts, have been extravagant in their reception of D'Estaing, who has shown nothing but madness and incapacity. How the northern monarchs, who have at least exhibited talents for war and politics, must despise the last campaign of England and France!
It was effected the very day on which D'Estaing appeared off Chingoteague inlet. At Paramus, in Jersey, General Washington received a letter from the president of congress, advising him of this important event, and requesting that he would concert measures with the Count for conjoint and offensive operations.
It has been said that Suffren, who had watched the cautious movements of D'Estaing in America, and had served in the Seven Years' War, attributed in part the reverses suffered by the French at sea to the introduction of Tactics, which he stigmatized as the veil of timidity; but that the results of the fight at Porto Praya, necessarily engaged without previous arrangement, convinced him that system and method had their use.
"By the way, Montgolfier has sent up a new balloon which has carried four passengers," went on the volatile d'Estaing. "Who is this Montgolfier with his balloons?" the Princess asked languidly. "Is he what the new coiffure is named after?" D'Estaing looked around a little significantly.
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