Текст книги "With Americans of Past and Present Days"
Автор книги: Jean Jules Jusserand
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Once again, therefore, life begins on those detested "sabots," a large-sized sabot, this time, namely the Brave, of seventy-four guns, "quite recently lined with copper," a sad place of abode, however, in bad weather, or even in any weather: "One can scarcely imagine the bigness of the sea, the noise, the height of the waves, such pitching and rolling that it was impossible to stand; the ships disappearing at times as if they had been swallowed by the sea, to touch it the instant after only with a tiny bit of the keel. What a nasty element, and how sincerely we hate it, all of us of the land troops! The lugubrious noise of the masts, the crics-cracs of the vessel, the terrible movements which on the sudden raise you, and to which we were not at all accustomed, the perpetual encumbrance that forty-five officers are for each other, forty having no other place of refuge than a single room for them all, the sad faces of those who are sick ... the dirt, the boredom, the feeling that one is shut up in a sabot as in a state prison ... all this is only part of what goes to make life unpleasant for a land officer on a vessel, even a naval one.... Let us take courage."[77]
Few diversions. They meet a slave-ship under the Austrian flag, an "abominable and cruel sight," with "that iron chain running from one end of the ship to the other, the negroes being tied there, two and two," stark naked and harshly beaten if they make any movement which displeases the captain. The latter, who is from Bordeaux, salutes his country's war flag with three "Vive le Roi!" They signal to him an answer which cannot be transcribed. No one knows where they go. "Sail on," philosophically writes Closen.
They touch at Porto Rico, at Curaçao, where the fleet is saddened by the loss of the Bourgogne, at Porto Cabello (Venezuela), where they make some stay, and where Closen loses no time in resuming his observations on natives, men and beasts, tatous, monkeys, caimans, "enormous lizards quite different from ours," houses which consist in one ground floor divided into three rooms. The "company of the Caracque" (Caracas) keeps the people in a state of restraint and slavery. "Taxation is enormous." Religious intolerance is very troublesome: "Though the Inquisition is not as rigorous in its searches as in Europe, for there is but one commissioner at Caracque, there is, however, too much fanaticism, too many absurd superstitions, in a word, too much ignorance among the inhabitants, who can never say a word or walk a step without saying an Ave, crossing themselves twenty times, or kissing a chaplet which they ever have dangling from their neck with a somewhat considerable accompaniment of relics and crosses. One gentleman, in order to play a trick on me, in the private houses where I had gained access so as to satisfy my curiosity and desire of instruction, told a few people that I was a Protestant. What signs of the cross at the news! And they would ceaselessly repeat: Malacco Christiano—a bad Christian!"
On the 24th of March (1783) great news reached them: the French vessel Andromaque arrived, "with the grand white flag on her foremast, as a signal of peace. The minute after all our men-of-war were decked with flags." There were a few more incidents, like the capture of some French officers, who were quietly rowing in open boats, by "the Albemarle, of twenty-four guns, commanded by Captain Nelson, of whom these gentlemen speak in the highest terms." As soon as the news of the peace was given him they were released by the future enemy of Napoleon.
The hour for the return home had struck at last. It was delayed by brief stays in some parts of the French West Indies, notably Cap Français, Santo Domingo (now Cap Haïtien). "A few days before our arrival at the Cape Prince William, Duke of Lancaster, third son of the King of England, had come and spent there two days, while the English squadron was cruising in the roads. Great festivities had been arranged in his honor,"—for there was really no hatred against the enemy of the day before.
Some calms and some storms also delayed the return, with the usual "criiiiicks craaaaaks" of the masts, the journey being occupied in transcribing the "notes and journals on the two Americas," and enlivened by the saving of the parrakeet of a Spanish lady who had been admitted with her family on board the Brave. "Frightened by something, the little parrakeet flies off and falls into the sea. The lady's negro, luckily happening to be on the same side, jumps just as he is, with no time to think, dives, reappears, cries, 'Cato! Cato!' joins the parrakeet, puts her on his woolly head, and returns to the ship." Delighted, the lady "allows this black saviour to kiss her hand, a unique distinction for a slave, and bestows on him a life pension of one hundred francs. Many sailors would have liked to do the same, had they known."
Land is now descried; they see again the sights noted when sailing for America: these "coasts thick-decked with live people, fruit-trees and other delightful objects." All is delightful; the joy is universal; they make arrangements to reach Paris, which Closen did in magnificent style. "And I," we read in his journal, "after having bought a fine coach where I could place, before, behind, on the top, my servants, consisting of a white man and of my faithful and superb black Peter, and with them three monkeys, four parrots, and six parrakeets, posted to Paris in this company, a noisy one and difficult to maintain clean and in good order.... The next day (June 22) I was at Saint-Pol-de-Léon, my last quarters before sailing for America, and saw again with hearty rejoicings the respectable Kersabiec family which had so well tended me throughout my convalescence after a deadly disease." He thought he could do no less than present them with one of his parrakeets as a token of "gratitude and friendship."
At Guingamp he finds the Du Dresnays, other friends of his, and reaches Paris, he writes, on the 30th of June, with "all my live beings of all colors, myself looking an Indian so tanned and sun-burnt was my face, exception made for my forehead, which my hat had preserved quite white."
The Rochambeau family made him leave his inn and stay with them in their beautiful house of the Rue du Cherche-Midi. The general ("my kind and respectable military father," says Closen) presented him to the minister of war, Marshal de Ségur, who granted the young officer a flattering welcome, and the journal closes as novels used to end in olden days, and as the first part of well-ordered, happy lives will ever continue to end. Leaving Paris with the promise of a colonelcy en second—"a very eventual ministerial bouquet"—he went home to Deux-Ponts: "There I found my beautiful fiancée, my dear, my divine Doris, who had had the constancy to keep for me her heart and her hand during the four years of my absence in America, in spite of several proposals received by her, even from men much better endowed with worldly goods, my share consisting only in the before mentioned ministerial promise and in the reputation of an honest man and a good soldier."
I shall only add that the ministerial promise was kept, and that it was as a colonel and a knight of Saint Louis that Closen found himself aide-de-camp again to his old chief, Rochambeau, charged with the defense of the northern frontier at the beginning of the Revolution.[78]
Faded inks, hushed voices. The remembrance of the work remains, however, and cannot fade; for its grandeur becomes, from year to year, more apparent. In less than a century and a half New York has passed from the ten thousand inhabitants it possessed under Clinton to the five million and more of to-day. Philadelphia, once the chief city, "an immense town," Closen had called it, has now ten times more houses than it had citizens. Partly owing again to France, ceding, unasked, the whole territory of Louisiana in 1803, the frontier of this country, which the upper Hudson formerly divided in its centre, has been pushed back to the Pacific; the three million Americans of Washington and Rochambeau have become the one hundred million of to-day. From the time when the flags of the two countries floated on the ruins of Yorktown the equilibrium of the world has been altered.
There is, perhaps, no case in which, with the unavoidable mixture of human interests, a war has been more undoubtedly waged for an idea. The fact was made obvious at the peace, when victorious France, being offered Canada for a separate settlement, refused,[79] and kept her word not to accept any material advantage, the whole nation being in accord, and the people illuminating for joy.
The cause was a just one; even the adversary, many among whom had been from the first of that opinion, was not long to acknowledge it. Little by little, and in spite of some fitful re-awakening of former animosities, as was seen in the second War of Independence, hostile dispositions vanished. The three nations who had met in arms in Yorktown, the three whose ancestors had known a Hundred Years' War, have now known a hundred years' peace. "I wish to see all the world at peace," Washington had written to Rochambeau. For over a century now the three nations which fought at Yorktown have become friends, and in this measure at least the wish of the great American has been fulfilled.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Concerning his American campaign, in which he greatly distinguished himself, he wrote later: "In itself, war did not interest me, but its object interested me keenly, and I willingly took part in its labors. I said to myself: 'I want the end; I must adopt the means.'" Œuvres, 1865, I, 11. He was wounded and promoted.
[2] Magazine of American History, March, 1880, ff.
[3] A quite handsome house, now the offices of the Ministry of Labor. The gardens no longer exist.
[4] Mémoires militaires, historiques et politiques de Rochambeau, ancien maréchal de France et grand officier de la Légion d'honneur, Paris, 1809, 2 vols., I, 235.
[5] "On a soutenu," said Pontgibaud, later Comte de Moré, one of Lafayette's aides, in a conversation with Alexander Hamilton, "que l'intérêt bien entendu de la France était de rester neutre et de profiter de l'embarras de l'Angleterre pour se faire restituer le Canada." But this would have been going against the general trend of public opinion, and a contrary course was followed. Mémoires du Comte de Moré, Paris, 1898, p. 169.
[6] Mémoires, souvenirs et anecdotes, Paris, 1824, 3 vols., I, 140. English translation, London, 1825.
[7] Œuvres, vol. IX, Paris, 1810, pp. 377 ff.
[8] Œuvres, IX, 417.
[9] January, 1781.
[10] He ends his dedication stating that he may fail and may have dreamed a mere dream, but he should not be blamed: "Le délire d'un citoyen qui rêve au bonheur de sa patrie a quelque chose de respectable." Essai Général de Tactique précédé d'un Discours sur l'état actuel de la politique et de la science militaire en Europe, London, 1772; Liége, 1775.
[11] Writings, Smythe, VIII, 390, 391.
[12] Both signed at Paris on the same day, February 6, 1778.
[13] Vergennes had written in the same way to the Marquis de Noailles, French ambassador in London: "Our engagements are simple; they are aggressive toward nobody; we have desired to secure for ourselves no advantage of which other nations might be jealous, and which the Americans themselves might regret, in the course of time, to have granted us." Doniol, Participation de la France à l'établissement des Etats Unis, II, 822.
[14] 1 November 11, 1778.
[15] Souvenirs du Lieutenant Général Comte Mathieu-Dumas, de 1770 à 1836, Paris, 3 vols., I, 36.
[16] Literary Diary, September 11, 1779; New York, 1901, 3 vols.
[17] Wooden shoes, a nickname for a ship of mean estate.
[18] So called after its owner, Samuel Fraunces (Francis or François) from the French West Indies, nicknamed "Black Sam" for the color of his skin.
[19] Nouveau Voyage dans l'Amérique Septentrionale en l'année 1781 et campagne de l'armée de M. le comte de Rochambeau, Philadelphia, 1782.
[20] Literary Diary, New York, 1901, II, 454.
[21] To Rochambeau; n.d., but 1780. (Rochambeau papers.)
[22] Writing to the president of Yale, July 29, 1778, Silas Deane, just about to return to France, recommended the creation of a chair of French: "This language is not only spoke in all the courts, but daily becomes more and more universal among people of business as well as men of letters, in all the principal towns and cities of Europe." Ezra Stiles consulted a number of friends; the majority were against or in doubt, "Mr. C– violently against, because of popery." Literary Diary, August 24, 1778, New York, 1901, II, 297. See also, concerning the prevalent impressions about the French the Mémoires du Comte de Moré, 1898, p. 69.
[23] August 8, 1780. (Rochambeau papers.)
[24] August 3, 1780. (Ibid.)
[25] Stiles's Literary Diary, II, 458.
[26] Rodney "has left here two months ago without our being able to guess whither he was going.... Maybe you know better than I do where he may presently be....
"We have just suffered from a terrible tornado, which has been felt in all the Windward Islands; it has caused cruel havoc. A convoy of fifty-two sails, arrived the day before in the roadstead of Saint-Pierre, Martinique, has been driven out to sea, and has disappeared for now a fortnight; five ships only returned here, the others may have reached San Domingo or must have perished. An English ship of the line of 44 guns, the Endymion, and two frigates, the Laurel and the Andromeda, of the same nationality, have perished on our coasts; we have saved some of their sailors." Marquis de Bouillé to Rochambeau, Fort Royal (Fort de France), October 27, 1780. (Rochambeau papers.)
[27] Three Saint-Simons took part in the American War of Independence, all relatives of the famous duke, the author of the memoirs: the Marquis Claude Anne (1740-1819), the Baron Claude (retired, 1806), and the Count Claude Henri (1760-1825), then a very young officer, the future founder of the Saint-Simonian sect, and first philosophical master of Auguste Comte.
[28] January 7, 1781. (Rochambeau papers.)
[29] Histoire des Troubles de l'Amérique Anglaise, by Soulès; Clinton's copy, in the Library of Congress, p. 360.
[30] January 15, 1781.
[31] Specimens exhibited by the doctor's descendant in the Fraunces's Tavern Museum.
[32] In English in the original.
[33] Voyages de M. le Marquis de Chastellux dans l'Amérique Septentrionale, dans les années 1780, 1781 et 1782, Paris, 1786, 2 vols., I, 118.
[34] Now the property of the Charity Organization Society. See A History of the Vernon House, by Maud Lyman Stevens, Newport, R.I., 1915. Illustrated.
[35] To Rochambeau, June 30, 1781.
[36] This island's aspect fifteen years later is thus described by Duke de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt: "Enfin nous sommes arrivés à King's Bridge dans l'île de New York, où le terrain, généralement mauvais, est encore en mauvais bois dans les parties les plus éloignées de la ville, et où il est cependant couvert de fermes et surtout de maisons de campagne dans les six ou sept milles qui s'en approchent davantage et dans les parties qui avoisinent la rivière du Nord et le bras de mer qui sépare cette île de Long Island." Voyage, V, 300.
[37] The convoy was carrying to England the enormous booty taken by Rodney at St. Eustatius. Eighteen of its ships were captured by La Motte-Picquet (May 2, 1781) and thus reached France instead of England.
Toward the Hessians, however, the feeling was different. Some had deserted to enlist in Lauzun's legion, but they almost immediately counterdeserted, upon which Rochambeau wrote to Lauzun: "You have done the best in deciding never to pester yourself again with Hessian deserters, of whom, you know, I never had a good opinion." Newport, December 22, 1780.
[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 frivolités" 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 Ménonville, 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." Mémoires du Comte de Moré (Pontgibaud), 1898, p. 104.
[51] Same good feeling on the Gloucester side. After the surrender, "les officiers anglais vinrent voir nos officiers qui étaient de service, leur firent toutes les honnêtetés possible, et burent à leur santé." (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 armée le général Clinton, avec des troupes venues de New York pour secourir lord Cornwallis. Mais il était trop tard; la poule était mangée, 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 trouvé dans les ruines de Palmyre par un Anglois et déposé au Museum Britannicum—Traduit du Grec par un François, 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 Fère.
[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-Général Comte Mathieu-Dumas, publiés 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] Œuvres, 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] Mémoires du Comte de Moré (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] Mémoires, souvenirs et anecdotes, I, 402.
[63] On which occasion the Marquis de Vaudreuil, in command of the fleet, wrote him from Boston, November 18, 1782: "Je suis vraiment touché, Monsieur, de ne pouvoir pas avoir l'honneur de vous voir ici; je m'estimais heureux de renouveler la connaissance que j'avais faite avec vous à Brest chez M. d'Orvilliers. Mais je ne puis qu'applaudir au parti que vous prenez d'éviter la tristesse des adieux et les témoignages de la sensibilité de tous vos officiers en se voyant séparés de leur chef qu'ils respectent et chérissent sincèrement." (Rochambeau papers.)
[64] An anecdote in the Autobiography of John Trumbull, the painter, well shows how lasting were the feelings for the land and the people taken home with them by the French. The artist tells of his reaching Mulhouse in 1795, finding it "full of troops," with no accommodation of any sort. He is taken to the old general in command:
"The veteran looked at me keenly and asked bluntly: 'Who are you, an Englishman?'
"'No, general, I am an American of the United States.'
"'Ah! do you know Connecticut?'
"'Yes, sir, it is my native State.'
"'You know, then, the good Governor Trumbull?'
"'Yes, general, he is my father.'
"'Oh! mon Dieu, que je suis charmé.... Entrez, entrez!'"
And all that is best is placed at the disposal of the newcomer by the soldier, who turns out to be a former member of the Lauzun legion. The artist adds: "The old general kept me up almost all night, inquiring of everybody and of everything in America." Some papers are brought for him to sign, which he does with his left hand, and, Trumbull noticing it, "'Yes,' said he, 'last year, in Belgium, the Austrians cut me to pieces and left me for dead, but I recovered, and, finding my right hand ruined, I have learned to use my left, and I can write and fence with it tolerably.'
"'But, sir,' said I, 'why did you not retire from service?'
"'Retire!' exclaimed he. 'Ha! I was born in a camp, have passed all my life in the service, and will die in a camp, or on the field.'
"This is," Trumbull concludes, "a faithful picture of the military enthusiasm of the time—1795."
[65] "... An inscription engraved on them, expressive of the occasion. I find a difficulty in getting the engraving properly executed. When it will be finished, I shall with peculiar pleasure put the cannon into your possession." Washington to Rochambeau, February 2, 1782.
[66] De Grasse died in January, 1788. "The Cincinnati in some of the States have gone into mourning for him." Washington to Rochambeau, April 28, 1788.
[67] Jefferson seems to have feared that the souvenir of Rochambeau might soon fade. He wrote to Madison, February 8, 1786: "Count Rochambeau, too, has deserved more attention than he has received. Why not set up his bust, that of Gates, Greene, Franklin in your new Capitol?" No bust was placed in the Capitol, but the raising of the statue in Lafayette Square, Washington, in 1902, has proved that, after so many years, Rochambeau was not forgotten in America.
[68] May 28, 1788.
[69] In a letter of July 31, 1789, Rochambeau informs Washington of Barlow's arrival, "and I made him all the good reception that he deserves by himself and by the honorable commendation that you give to him." In Rochambeau's English; Washington papers.
[70] Fr., "en petit comité"—a small party of friends.
[71] January 7, 1786. Washington papers.
[72] Paris, June, 1785 (ibid.)
[73] "Rochambeau near Vendôme, April 11, 1790."
[74] Here is this letter in full:
Paris the 18th November, 1790.
Sir:
I hope that your Excellency will give me the leave to beg a favor of your justice. I think it just to intercede for the Baron de Closen who was an aide-de-camp to Mr. Rochambeau during the American war. He longs with the desire to be a member of the association of the Cincinnati. The officers who were employed in the French army and younger than him in the military service have been decorated with this emblem of liberty, and such a reward given by your Excellency's hand shall increase its value.
I flatter myself that you will receive the assurances of the respect and veneration I have for your talents and your virtue, well known in the whole world.
I have (etc.),
La Comtesse de Rochambeau.
[75] June, 1785. Two of the Berthier brothers had taken part, as we saw, in the expedition. The one alluded to here is the younger, César-Gabriel, not the older, Louis-Alexandre, who became Prince de Wagram. Both are described in their "états de service," preserved among the Rochambeau papers, as expert draftsmen. The notice concerning the younger, who was a captain of dragoons, reads: "Il s'est fait remarquer ainsi que son frère par son talent à dessiner et lever des plans."
[76] Concerning this correspondence, as continued during the French Revolution, see below, pp. 245 ff.
[77] December 29, 1782.
[78] A lithographed portrait mentions the later-day titles and dignities of: "I.C. Louis, Baron de Closen, Maréchal de Camp, chambellan et chevalier des ordres français pour le Mérite et de la Légion d'honneur, ainsi que de celui de Cincinnatus des Etats Unis de l'Amérique Septentrionale." Reproduced by C.W. Bowen, who first drew attention to this journal, Century Magazine, February, 1907. Closen died in 1830, aged seventy-five.
[79] Which was done in a letter giving as a reason "that, whenever the two crowns should come to treat, his Most Christian Majesty would show how much the engagements he might enter into were to be relied on, by his exact observance of those he had already had with his present allies." Quoted, as "a sentence which I much liked," by Franklin, writing to John Adams, April 13, 1782.
II
MAJOR L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY
MAJOR L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY
I
Little more than a century ago the hill on which rises the Capitol of the federal city and the ground around it were covered with woods and underbrush; a few scattered farms had been built here and there, with one or two exceptions mere wooden structures whose low roofs scarcely emerged from their leafy surroundings. Not very long before, Indians had used to gather on that eminence and hold their council-fires.
As far now as the eye can reach the picturesque outline of one of the finest cities that exist is discovered; steeples and pinnacles rise above the verdure of the trees lining the avenues within the unaltered frame supplied by the blue hills of Maryland and Virginia.
The will of Congress, the choice made by the great man whose name the city was to bear, the talents of a French officer, caused this change.
Debates and competitions had been very keen; more than one city of the North and of the South had put forth pleas to be the one selected and become the capital: Boston, where the first shot had been fired; Philadelphia, where independence had been proclaimed; Yorktown, where it had been won—Yorktown, modest as a city, but glorious by the events its name recalled, now an out-of-the-way borough, rarely visited, and where fifty white inhabitants are all that people the would-be capital of the new-born Union. New York also had been in the ranks, as well as Kingston, Newport, Wilmington, Trenton, Reading, Lancaster, Annapolis, Williamsburg, and several others. Passions were stirred to such an extent that the worst was feared, and that, incredible as it may now seem, Jefferson could speak of the "necessity of a compromise to save the Union."
