To George Washington from Charles Barbier de La Serre, 5 November 1792
From Charles Barbier de La Serre
Baltimore, 5 Nov. 1792. Seeks employment in the U.S. military service, having decided to leave his native France. He cites his attendance at the French military school at Douaï, his eight years of experience in the French artillery, and his knowledge of fortification and the moving of convoys. Although he has forgotten the English that he once knew, he says that he will strenuously apply himself to relearning the language.1
ALS (in French), DLC:GW.
1. Former French artillery captain Nicolas-Marie-Charles Barbier de La Serre (1767–1841) fled France in 1792 and spent several years as a political refugee in the United States before returning. He subsequently developed a system of communication to assist the blind, known as écriture nocturne, which used a combination of raised dots to represent the sounds of the French language and influenced the alphabet designed by Louis Braille. See Philippa Campsie, “Charles Barbier: A hidden story,” Disability Studies Quarterly 41 (2021)..