OUR FIRST ALLIANCE 



541 



famous battles of Trenton and Prince- 

 ton." The young man, who had made 

 great progress in English, was now used 

 by the two generals as their interpreter ; 

 so nothing escaped him. 



The reception at Philadelphia was tri- 

 umphal ; Congress was most courteous ; 

 toasts were innumerable. The city is an 

 immense one, "with seventy-two streets 

 in a straight line. . . . Shops abound 

 in all kinds of merchandise, and some of 

 them do not yield to the Petit Dunkerque 

 in Paris." Women are very pretty, "of 

 charming manners, and very well dressed, 

 even in French fashion." Benezet, the 

 French Quaker, one of the celebrities of 

 the city, is found to be full of wisdom, 

 and La Luzerne, "who keeps a state 

 worthy of his sovereign," gives a dinner 

 to one hundred and eighty guests. 



From Philadelphia to Chester, on the 

 5th of September, Rochambeau and his 

 aides took a boat. As they were nearing 

 the latter city, "we saw in the distance," 

 says Closen, "General Washington shak- 

 ing his hat and a white handkerchief, and 

 showing signs of great joy." 



GREAT NEWS ! DE GRASSE HAD COME ! 



Rochambeau had scarcely landed when 

 Washington, usually so cool and com- 

 posed, fell into his arms ; the great news 

 had arrived ; de Grasse had come, and 

 while Cornwallis was on the defensive at 

 Yorktown, the French fleet was barring 

 the Chesapeake. 



On the receipt of letters from Wash- 

 ington, Rochambeau, and La Luzerne, 

 telling him to what extent the fate of the 

 United States was in his hands, the sailor, 

 having "learned, with much sorrow," he 

 wrote to the latter, "what was the distress 

 of the continent, and the need there was 

 of immediate help," had decided that he 

 would leave nothing undone to usefully 

 take part in the supreme effort which, 

 without his help, might be attempted in 

 vain. 



Having left, on the 5th of August, Cap 

 Francais (today Cap Haitien), he had 

 added to his fleet all the available ships 

 he could find in our isles, including some 

 which, having been years away, had re- 

 ceived orders to go back to France for 

 repairs. He had had great difficulty in 



obtaining the money asked for, although 

 he had offered to mortgage for it his 

 Castle of Tilly, and the Chevalier de 

 Charitte, in command of the Bonrgogne, 

 had made a like offer. But at last, thanks 

 to the Spanish governor at Havana, he 

 had secured the desired amount of twelve 

 hundred thousand francs. He was bring- 

 ing, moreover, the Marquis de Saint- 

 Simon, with the 3,000 regular troops 

 under his command. 



De Grasse's only request was that op- 

 erations be pushed on with the utmost 

 rapidity, as he was bound to be back at 

 the Isles at a fixed date. 



America's debt to de grasse 



It can truly be said that no single man 

 risked nor did more for the United States 

 than de Grasse, the single one of the lead- 

 ers to whom no memorial has been dedi- 

 cated. 



The news spread like wild-fire ; the 

 camp was merry with songs and shouts ; 

 in Philadelphia the joy was indescribable; 

 crowds pressed before the house of La 

 Luzerne, cheering him and his country, 

 while in the streets impromptu orators, 

 standing on chairs, delivered mock fu- 

 neral orations on the Earl of Cornwallis. 

 "You have," Rochambeau wrote to the 

 admiral, "spread universal joy through- 

 out America, with which she is wild." 



Anxiety was renewed, however, when 

 it was learned shortly after that the 

 French men-of-war had left the Chesa- 

 peake, the entrance to which now re- 

 mained free. The English fleet, of 

 twenty ships and seven frigates, under 

 Hood and Graves, the same Graves who 

 had failed to intercept Rochambeau's con- 

 voy, had been signaled on the 5th of Sep- 

 tember, and de Grasse, leaving behind 

 him, in order to go faster, some of his 

 ships and a number of sailors who were 

 busy on land, had weighed anchor, three- 

 quarters of an hour after sighting the 

 signals, to risk the fight upon which the 

 issue of the campaign and, as it turned 

 out, of the war was to depend. "This 

 behavior of Count de Grasse," wrote the 

 famous Tarleton, is "worthy of admira- 

 tion." 



Six days later the French admiral was 

 back; he had had 21 officers and 200 



