George Washington to Lieutenant General Rochambeau, 7 May 1781
To Lieutenant General Rochambeau
Head Quarters New Windsor 7th May 1781.
Sir
I have been honored with Your Excellency’s favors of the 30th of April and 4th of this month.1 The first was delivered to me by Colo. Menonville, to whom I refer you for what has passed between us on the subject of his mission.2
I have received no particular intelligence from New York since that of the 29th ulto, which has been communicated to your Excellency.3
I very sincerely4 wish success to the enterprise which the Chevalier des Touche has in contemplation.
Inclosed your Excellency will find a Warrant from the Quarter Master General appointing Colo. Champlin Barrack Master to the French Army.5
I have taken the liberty to send under this cover, a letter for Governor Hancock, which incloses one for Major General Howe. Should that Gentleman be in Newport or Providence you will oblige me by having the letter delivered to him and destroying the Governors. Should he be in neither of those places, you will be pleased to seal the Governors and forward it to Boston with the inclosure—The importance of the letter for General Howe and the uncertainty of the place which he will be at, must be an excuse for my giving your Excellency this extraordinary trouble.6
Your packet for the Chevalier de la Luzerne shall be carefully and expeditiously forwarded.7 I have the honor to be with very sincere Esteem Yr Excellency’s Most obt and humble Servt
Go: Washington
LS, in Tench Tilghman’s writing, CtY-BR:R; Df, DLC:GW; Rochambeau’s French translation, CtY-BR:R; LB, in French, DLC: Rochambeau Papers, vol. 12; Varick transcript, DLC:GW. Rochambeau’s translation and the letter-book copy lack the fifth paragraph.
1. Rochambeau’s letter to GW on 30 April explained Lieutenant Colonel Ménonville’s mission to obtain supplies for the French army (see Rochambeau to GW, 28 April, source note). Rochambeau’s letter on 4 May primarily relayed naval intelligence from around New York City.
2. See GW to Ménonville, 6 May.
3. Both GW and Rochambeau had received intelligence reports dated 29 April from the Culper spy ring (see Benjamin Tallmadge to GW, 2 May, n.2, and Rochambeau to GW, 4 May, and n.1 to that document). Rochambeau’s aide-de-camp Hans Axel von Fersen wrote his father Fredrik Axel von Fersen from Newport on 17 May that to economize the French did not keep “even one spy in New York, because it would cost us perhaps fifty louis a month; we prefer to receive news from General Washington, and to leave to the Americans, who have no money to pay for news, the duty of obtaining it. The spies who are there do it for love of country. For this reason we get our information very late, and we shall end by having none at all, for men soon weary of doing gratis a business which leads to the gallows” (, 45–46).
4. On the LS, Tilghman wrote “sincerlely” for this word.
5. The enclosed warrant appointing Jabez Champlin has not been identified, but see Timothy Pickering to GW, 4 May; see also GW to Béville, 8 May, and n.2 to that document.
6. See GW to Robert Howe, this date, and the source note to that document.
7. Rochambeau’s letter to French minister La Luzerne, dated 4 May, enclosed an extract from a letter the commander in chief of Saint Domingue had written Rochambeau on 10 April to report military intelligence (DLC: Rochambeau Papers, vol. 9; see also Rochambeau to GW, 4 May, n.3).