Benjamin Franklin Papers

To Benjamin Franklin from the Comtesse de Rochambeau, 8 August 1781

From the Comtesse de Rochambeau5

AL: American Philosophical Society

au palais roïal le 8. aoust. [1781]6

Mde. La Ctesse. de Rochambeau prie Monsieur le docteur francklin d’avoir La Bonté de luy mander ce qu’il peut dire dune nouvelle que les Banqiers debitent depuis deux jours qui Leurs est venu par Londres qui est que Mr. clainton etant allé attaquer Mr. le cte. de rochambeau dans ces retranchemens en a été vivement repoussé et qu’il a perdu 1500 hommes.

Notation: Mde. La Comtesse de Rochambeau.

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

5. The wife of the general: XXXIV, 233n.

6. Although we have not been able to trace the rumor relayed in this letter, 1781 is the most likely year. On this date in 1780 news had not yet reached London of Rochambeau’s arrival in America. (It arrived later in the month; see the Aug. 26 issue of the London Courant, and Westminster Chronicle.) By the same date in 1782 Clinton was back in London: Willcox, Portrait of a General, p. 471.

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    Source Project
    Franklin Papers
    Title
    To Benjamin Franklin from the Comtesse de Rochambeau, 8 August 1781
    Author
    Rochambeau, Jeanne-Thérèse de Telles d’Acosta, comtesse de
    Recipient
    Franklin, Benjamin
    Date
    8 August 1781

    Reference

    Cite as
    “To Benjamin Franklin from the Comtesse de Rochambeau, 8 August 1781,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-35-02-0262. [Original source: The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 35, May 1 through October 31, 1781, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999, p. 347.]