Under one general head, I shall express my concern for your disappointment of letters, our disappointment of clothes, and disappointment in the mode of raising men; but I shall congratulate you on the late change of the administration of France,~[1] as it seems to be consonant to your wishes, and to encourage hope. I am much pleased at the friendly disposition of Portugal. Much good, I hope, will result from the combination of the maritime powers. I am in very confined quarters; little better than those at Valley Forge, but such as they are I shall welcome into them your friends on their return to Rhode Island. I am, &c.
1. Footnote 1: The Marquis de Castries had succeeded, as minister of the navy, to M. de Sartine. This change gave rise to the hope that France would send the promised succours, and that expectation induced M. de Lafayette to renounce his journey to the south.
New Windsor, on the North River, Jan. 30th, 1781.
The letters which I had the honour of writing to you, sir, and which were dated the 20th May, 19th July, 4th and 16th December, have, I hope, reached you safely. Since the arrival of the squadron, your despatch of the 3rd of June is the only one I have received. The Chevalier de la Luzerne has only received one letter of the same month, and none have yet reached the officers of the army and squadron.
The first copy of this letter will be delivered to you by Lieutenant-Colonel Laurens, aide-de-camp to General Washington, who is charged by congress with a private mission. Permit me to recommend to you this officer as a man who, by his integrity, frankness, and patriotism, must be extremely acceptable to government.
According to the instructions of congress, he will place before you the actual state of our affairs, which demand, I think more than ever, the most serious attention. As to the opinions which I may allow myself to express, sir, they entirely correspond with those I have hitherto expressed, and the very slight alterations observable in them have been occasioned by a change of time, prejudices, and circumstances.
With a naval inferiority, it is impossible to make war in America. It is that which prevents us from attacking any point that might be carried with two or three thousand men. It is that which reduces us to defensive operations, as dangerous as they are humiliating. The English are conscious of this truth, and all their movements prove how much they desire to retain the empire of the sea. The harbours, the country, and all the resources it offers, appear to invite us to send thither a naval force. If we had possessed but a maritime superiority this spring, much might have been achieved with the army that M. de Rochambeau brought with him, and it would not have been necessary to have awaited the division he announced to us. If M. de Guichen had stopped at Rhode Island, on his way to France, Arbuthnot would have been ruined, and not all Rodney's efforts could have prevented our gaining victories. Since the hour of the arrival of the French, their inferiority has never for one moment ceased, and the English and the Tories have dared to say that France wished to kindle, without extinguishing the flame. This calumny becomes more dangerous at a period when the English detachments are wasting the south; when, under the protection of some frigates, corps of fifteen hundred men are repairing to Virginia, without our being able to get to them. On the whole continent, with the exception of the Islands of Newport, it is physically impossible that we should carry on an offensive war without ships, and even on those Islands the difficulty of transportation, the scarcity of provisions, and many other inconveniences, render all attempts too precarious to enable us to form any settled plan of campaign.