Benjamin Franklin Papers

To Benjamin Franklin from the Vicomte de Rochambeau, [before 25 December 1780]

From the Vicomte de Rochambeau8

AL: American Philosophical Society

[before December 25, 1780]9

M. le Vcte. de Rochambeau a l’honneur de prevenir Monsieur le Docteur francklin qu’il ne part pas encore pour l’amerique Septentrionale,1 mais que M. de Vauban2 officier françois compte partir aujourdhui a 9 heures du matin pour Brest ou il s’embarquera et qu’il pourroit Se charger de remettre les paquets de Monsieur Le Docteur francklin a Monsieur de La perouze capitaine de la fregatte L’amazone qui S’en retourne en Amerique.3 D’après de Monsieur franklin il Se chargera de faire passer les depeches a M. de Vauban.

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

8Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau (1755–1813), serving as aide-major général des logis in his father’s army, had returned to France to report on the Hartford conference with Washington and to press for reinforcements and money. Bodinier, Dictionnaire, pp. 479–80; “The War in America, An Unpublished Journal (1780–1783),” in Jean-Edmond Weelen, Rochambeau Father and Son: a Life of the Maréchal de Rochambeau, and The Journal of the Vicomte de Rochambeau (hitherto unpublished), trans. Lawrence Lee, (New York, 1936), pp. 214–15; Lee Kennett, The French Forces in America … (Westport, Conn., 1977), pp. 59–61, 78, 89.

9The day La Pérouse sailed from Brest to return to America: Gaz. de Leyde, Dec. 26, 1780 (sup.); Jan. 16, 1781.

1The vicomte left in late March, 1781, aboard the frigate Concorde: Weelen, Rochambeau Father and Son, p. 215; Gaz. de Leyde, April 13, 1781.

2The comte de Vauban (XXXIII, 158n), going to join Rochambeau’s staff, had departed for the Ariel in August, 1780, carrying dispatches from BF and the court: XXXIII, 322. When Jones’s ship was dismasted, Vauban returned to Versailles and was only now departing with those packets: Idzerda, Lafayette Papers, III, 253–4.

3La Pérouse exchanged the Amazone for the faster, coppered frigate Astrée to carry much needed money to the forces in North America. He arrived in Boston on Feb. 25: Amblard-Marie-Raymond-Amédée, vicomte de Noailles, Marins et soldats français en Amérique pendant la guerre de l’indépendance des Etats-Unis … (2nd ed., Paris, 1903), pp. 214–15; Kennett, French Forces, p. 91.

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