rms in striking colors. They wondered at the
quantities of tea drunk by their friends and so do we when we remember
the political hatred for tea. They made the blunder common in Europe of
thinking that there were no social distinctions in America. Washington
could have told him a different story. Intercourse was at first
difficult, for few of the Americans spoke French and fewer still of the
French spoke English. Sometimes the talk was in Latin, pronounced by an
American scholar as not too bad. A French officer writing in Latin to
an American friend announces his intention to learn English: "Inglicam
linguam noscere conabor." He made the effort and he and his fellow
officers learned a quaint English speech. When Rochambeau and Washington
first met they conversed through La Fayette, as interpreter, but in time
the older man did very well in the language of his American comrade in
arms.

For a long time the French army effected nothing. Washington longed
to attack New York and urged the effort, but the wise and experienced
Rochambeau applied his principle, "nothing without naval supremacy,"
and insisted that in such an attack a powerful fleet should act with
a powerful army, and, for the moment, the French had no powerful fleet
available. The British were blockading in Narragansett Bay the French
fleet which lay there. Had the French army moved away from Newport their
fleet would almost certainly have become a prey to the British. For
the moment there was nothing to do but to wait. The French preserved an
admirable discipline. Against their army there are no records of outrage
and plunder such as we have against the German allies of the British. We
must remember, however, that the French were serving in the country of
their friends, with every restraint of good feeling which this involved.
Rochambeau told his men that they must not be the theft of a bit of
wood, or of any vegetables, or of even a sheaf of straw. He threatened
the vice which he called "sonorous drunkenness," and even lack of
cleanliness, with sharp punishment. The result was that a month after
landing he could say that not a cabbage had been stolen. Our credulity
is strained when we are told that apple trees with their fruit overhung
the tents of his soldiers and remained untouched. Thousands flocked to
see the French camp. The bands played and Puritan maidens of all grades
of society danced with the young French officers and we are told,
whether we believ