Major General Chastellux to George Washington, April 1781
From Major General Chastellux
[April 1781]
dear general
I was confined in my bed and very sick when I received the favor of your letter. that letter came on purpose, and served as an encouragement to get the better of my desease.1 I did not judge proper to depart with a life so much honoured And endeared to me by your friendship.2 the respect And attachment that I profess for your excellency are such that they may indeed claim a distinction but, dear general, while you continued at newport they were lost in the universal applause and admiration of our armée. your excellency carried the hearts of the french. let the bodies follow, and may we be happy enough to fight at your sight and under your command.
I am sorry that the courage of our navy is to prove so useless to the common cause. opinion is always some thing, and constancy will perform one day or an other what the boldest attempts could not do.3
I beg leave to present your excellency with the due hommage and true respect with which I suscribe my self your most humble and obedient servant
le chr de chastellux
ALS, DLC:GW. GW docketed this undated letter: “April 1781.”
2. For Chastellux’s illness, see Rochambeau to GW, 25 March and 4 April.
3. Chastellux presumably refers to the indecisive Battle of Cape Henry (see Destouches to GW, 19 March).
4. The Italian word capóna means a headstrong, obstinate woman. Chastellux alludes to Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, the wife of GW’s former aide-de-camp Alexander Hamilton, who left GW’s service as a result of a personal rupture (see General Orders, 16 Feb., source note).
5. Both Hamilton and GW’s aide-de-camp Tench Tilghman had accompanied GW on his visit to Newport in early March (see GW to Hamilton, 7 March, source note).