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Costumes of Colonial Times.
Chapter XXII.
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During the reign of terror Rochambeau was arrested at his estate near Vendome, conducted to Paris, thrown into the Conciergerie and condemned to death. When the car came to convey a number of victims to the guillotine, he was about to mount it, but the official in charge seeing it full thrust him back. "Stand back, old marshal," cried he, roughly, "your turn will come by and by." A sudden change in political affairs saved his life, and enabled him to return to his home near Vendome. Rochambeau survived the Revolution, and received the grand cross of the Legion of Honor and a marshal's pension from the great Napoleon.—From Irving's Life of Washington.
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As early as 1784 Lord Sheffield said in Parliament: "It is not probable that the American States will have a very free trade in the Mediterranean. It will not be to the interest of any of the great maritime powers to protect them from the Barbary States. If they know their interests they will not encourage American carriers."
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Mr. William L. Stone, the historical writer, recently published the diary of a relative who served a few months in the Revolution, and who received ten sheep for enlisting. The soldier in question appears to have been in the habit of going home whenever he felt like it to cultivate his crops.
Governor Clinton said of the militia: "They come in the morning and return in the evening, and I never know when I have them, or what my strength is."—Letter to the New York Council of Safety.
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M. Barbé Marbois, who was Secretary of the French Legation in the United States during the Revolution, says of Washington: "The sound judgment of Washington, his steadiness and ability, had long since elevated him above all his rivals and far beyond the reach of envy. His enemies still labored, however, to fasten upon him, as a general, the reproach of mediocrity. It is true that the military career of this great man is not marked by any of those achievements which seem prodigious, and of which the splendor dazzles and astonishes the universe, but sublime virtues unsullied with the least stain are a species of prodigy. His conduct throughout the whole course of the war invariably attracted and deserved the veneration and confidence of his fellow-citizens. The good of his country was the sole end of his exertions, never personal glory. In war and in peace, Washington is in my eyes the most perfect model that can be offered to those who would devote themselves to the service of their country and assert the cause of liberty."
Chapter XXIV.
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In the famous sea-fight between the American frigate United States and the British frigate Macedonian several American seamen on the British vessel, through their spokesman, John Card, who was described by one of his shipmates as being "as brave a seamen as ever trod a plank," frankly told Captain Garden their objections to fighting the American flag. The British commander savagely ordered them back to their quarters, threatening to shoot them if they again made the request. Half an hour later Jack Card was stretched out on the Macedonian's deck weltering in his blood, slain by a shot from his countrymen.—Maclay's History of the United States Navy, D. Appleton & Co.
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The Constitution may still be seen in the Navy Yard at Portsmouth, N. H. The following famous poem, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, saved the grand old vessel from destruction in 1833: