[17] Wooden shoes, a nickname for a ship of mean estate.
[18] So called after its owner, Samuel Fraunces (Francis or François) from the French West Indies, nicknamed "Black Sam" for the color of his skin.
[19] Nouveau Voyage dans l'Amérique Septentrionale en l'année 1781 et campagne de l'armée de M. le comte de Rochambeau, Philadelphia, 1782.
[20] Literary Diary, New York, 1901, II, 454.
[21] To Rochambeau; n.d., but 1780. (Rochambeau papers.)
[22] Writing to the president of Yale, July 29, 1778, Silas Deane, just about to return to France, recommended the creation of a chair of French: "This language is not only spoke in all the courts, but daily becomes more and more universal among people of business as well as men of letters, in all the principal towns and cities of Europe." Ezra Stiles consulted a number of friends; the majority were against or in doubt, "Mr. C—— violently against, because of popery." Literary Diary, August 24, 1778, New York, 1901, II, 297. See also, concerning the prevalent impressions about the French the Mémoires du Comte de Moré, 1898, p. 69.
[23] August 8, 1780. (Rochambeau papers.)
[24] August 3, 1780. (Ibid.)
[25] Stiles's Literary Diary, II, 458.
[26] Rodney "has left here two months ago without our being able to guess whither he was going.... Maybe you know better than I do where he may presently be....