The dance, A Successful Campaign, was the one selected by diplomatic Miss Peggy Champlin to open the ball, when she danced in Newport with General Washington, to the piping of De Rochambeau and his fellow officers. This was “the figure” of A Successful Campaign. “Lead down two couples on the outside and up the middle; second couple do the same, turn contrary partners, cast off, right hand and left.” It was simple, was it not—but I doubt not it was dignified and of sedate importance when Washington footed it.
Stony Point was another favorite of Revolutionary days—for did not General Wayne successfully storm the place? This dance was more difficult; the directions were somewhat bewildering. “First couple three hands round with the second lady—allemand. Three hands round with the second gentleman—allemand again. Lead down two couples, up again, cast off one couple, hands round with the third, right and left.” I scarcely know what the figure “allemand” was. The German allemande was then an old style of waltz, slower than the modern waltz, but I can scarcely think that Washington or any of those serious, dignified officers waltzed, even to slow time.
Another obsolete term is “foot it.”
Come and foot it as you go
On the light fantastic toe,
seems to refer to some definite step in dancing. Sheridan in The Rivals thus uses the term in regard to dances:—
I’d foot it with e’er a captain in the county, but these outlandish heathen allemandes and cotillions are quite beyond me.
But “footing it” and “outlandish heathen allemandes” are not so misty as another term, “to haze.” In the Innocent Maid they “hazed.” “First three couples haze, then lead down the middle and back again, close with the right hand and left.” In dancing the Corsino they figured thus: “Three couples foot it and change sides; foot it again and once more change sides; three couples allemand, and the first fall in the middle then right hand and left.”
Dancing-masters’ advertisements of those days often give us the list of modish dances: “Allemandes Vally’s, De la Cours, Devonshire Minuets and Jiggs.”
Burnaby in 1759 wrote of a special pleasure of the Quaker maids of Philadelphia: of fishing-parties.