III.
THE ABBÉ ROBIN, ONE OF THE CHAPLAINS TO THE FRENCH ARMY IN AMERICA.
1781.
‘New Travels in America’—From Rhode Island to Maryland—Annapolis—The French Army in the Chesapeake—M. de La Fayette—Williamsburg—Tobacco—Yorktown after Siege—Billetting of the French Troops.
THE FRENCH ARMY, after a voyage of eighty-five days, landed at Boston June 24, 1781. With it came the Abbé Robin, a philosopher who was more than once in America and has left recorded descriptions of Louisiana as well as of the Atlantic Coast. The Abbé Robin was a genial, generalizing observer—his New Travels in America[F] is an interesting book, particularly in its passages with a bearing upon the activities and the good behavior of the Allies from France. We learn therein how the French introduced among us the brass band and set on foot improvements in the art of the dance: they also brought us to a knowledge of the ancient diversion faro.
The New Travels of the Abbé Robin, like so many other travellers’ books of that period, are in the form of letters to a friend. The author proceeded with the Army from Boston to Providence, through Connecticut (where he was struck with traces of the “active and inventive genius” of the inhabitants), to the Camp at Philippsburg, down the Hudson into the Jerseys, past Philadelphia and Baltimore. He writes:
Annapolis, September 21, 1781.
The army was to prosecute the rest of the march to Virginia by land, and with that view took the road leading to Alexandria, a flourishing commercial town upon the Potomack; but upon the news of the arrival of the Romulus ship of war, with two frigates and a number of transports, we turned off towards Annapolis, but the horses and carriages continued their journey by land.
As we advance towards the south we observe a sensible difference in the manners and customs of the people. This opulence was particularly observable at Annapolis. That very inconsiderable town, standing at the mouth of the river Severn, where it falls into the bay, out of the few buildings it contains, has at least three-fourths such as may be styled elegant and grand. The state-house is a very beautiful building, I think the most so of any I have seen in America. The peristyle is set off with pillars, and the edifice is topped with a dome.
We are embarking with the greatest expedition; the weather is the finest you can conceive, and the wind fair: I think the impatience of the French will soon be at an end.