Office of Foreign Affairs, November 2d, 1781.
Sir,
It is with peculiar pleasure that I obey the directions of Congress in making communications, which show their sense of the exertions of their ally, and of the merit of the officers he employs. The confidence inspired by the first, and the esteem excited by the last, form new bands of union between nations, whom reciprocal interests had before connected. In this view I flatter myself the enclosed acts of Congress will be agreeable to you, and that you will with pleasure communicate to his Most Christian Majesty their desire, with his permission, to present to the Count de Grasse two pieces of field ordnance, taken from the enemy at York, with inscriptions calculated to show that Congress were induced to present them from considerations of the illustrious part, which he bore in effectuating the surrender.[1]
I have the honor to be, with the greatest respect and esteem, &c.
ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In Congress, October 28th, 1781. "Resolved, That the thanks of the United States in Congress assembled be presented to his Excellency the Count de Rochambeau, for the cordiality, zeal, judgment, and fortitude, with which he seconded and advanced the progress of the allied army against the British garrison in York.
"That the thanks of the United States in Congress assembled be presented to his Excellency the Count de Grasse, for his display of skill and bravery in attacking and defeating the British fleet off the Bay of Chesapeake, and for his zeal and alacrity in rendering, with the fleet under his command, the most effectual and distinguished aid and support to the operations of the allied army in Virginia.
"That the thanks of the United States in Congress assembled be presented to the commanding and other officers of the corps of artillery and engineers of the allied army, who sustained extraordinary fatigue and danger in their animated and gallant approaches to the lines of the enemy.
"Resolved, That the United States in Congress assembled will cause to be erected at York, in Virginia, a marble column, adorned with emblems of the alliance between the United States and his Most Christian Majesty, and inscribed with a succinct narrative of the surrender of Earl Cornwallis to his Excellency General Washington, Commander in Chief of the combined forces of America and France, to his Excellency the Count de Rochambeau, commanding the auxiliary troops of his Most Christian Majesty in America, and his Excellency Count de Grasse, commanding in chief the naval army of France in the Chesapeake.