Search

Concerns the arrival of funds for the French army.

Following a long laudatory paragraph summarizing Rochambeau's services in America, he is promised the command of the first military district command to fall vacant with a pay of 30,000 livres, the pay to begin immediately. His son is promised command of a regiment in advance of his seniority.

Informs Rochambeau that the King is highly pleased with his good relations with Washington. He requests, however, that Washington's replies to Rochambeau's letters be sent in full, instead of in abridged versions.

Concerns the beginning of the Yorktown campaign. He states he will leave with 25 to 29 warships on August 3 to Chesapeake Bay, and that he can remain no longer than the 15th of October. The postscript, in the handwriting of de Grasse, relates to the furnishing of pilots for Chesapeake Bay. This letter is listed and reproduced in The American Campaigns of Rochambeau's Army 1780, 1781, 1782, 1783, trans. and ed. by Howard C. Rice, Jr., and Anne S. K. Brown, Vol. I, pp. xvii-xviii and between pp. 60 and 61. It was exhibited at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, in the 1981 exhibition, "By Sea and Land: Independence with the Help of France."

Informs Rochambeau that de Grasse has been ordered to cooperate with him in operations in North America. Rochambeau notes that he received this letter from de Grasse in Chesapeake Bay on Sept. 17th, 1781.

The enclosure gives the news of the disastrous defeat at Camden. La Luzerne comments that this defeat opens all of the Carolinas to British invasion, which he predicts will soon come. He also speaks of purchases of horses being made near Lancaster, Pa., and of the expected arrival of dispatches from France on the Alliance, which had just arrived at Boston.

Information on changes in the British naval command. In a postscript, and on the enclosed paper, he tells of reported ship movements in New York, which were apparently sending troops to Virginia.

Reminds Rochambeau that the figures for the force he would be able to supply is tentative, pending approval of the States. He relates news from General Greene in South Carolina regarding his troop movements and the efforts of Lord Rawden to force Greene away from Camden.

He continues to argue against the desirability of leaving Newport to join de Grasse, alleging that he would run the risk of being driven back into the port, and forced to burn his ships.

Approval of Rochambeau's conduct at the Hartford conference, with the assurance that a plentiful supply of money, both in specie and in notes, was being sent on to him.