You have my free consent to make the Count d'Estaing a visit, and may signify my entire approbation of it to General Sullivan, who, I am glad to find, has moved you out of a _cul de sac_. It was my advice to him long ago, to have no detachments in that situation, let particular places be ever so much unguarded and exposed from the want of troops. Immediately upon my removal from White Plains to this ground, the enemy threw a body of troops into the Jerseys; but for what purpose, unless to make a grand forage, I have not been able yet to learn. They advanced some troops at the same time from their lines at Kingsbridge towards our old encampment at the plains, stripping the inhabitants not only of their provisions and forage, but even the clothes on their backs, and without discrimination.
The information, my dear marquis, which I begged the favour of you to obtain, was not, I am persuaded, to be had through the channel of the officers of the French fleet, but by application to your fair lady, to whom I should be happy in an opportunity of paying my homage in Virginia, when the war is ended, if she could be prevailed upon to quit, for a few months, the gaieties and splendour of a court, for the rural amusements of a humble cottage.
I shall not fail to inform Mrs. Washington of your polite attention to her. The gentlemen of my family are sensible of the honour you do them by your kind inquiries, and join with me in a tender of best regards; and none can offer them with more sincerity and affection than I do. With every sentiment you can wish, I am, my dear marquis, &c.
MY DEAR GENERAL,--I am going to consult your excellency upon a point in which I not only want your leave and opinion, as the commander-in-chief, but also your candid advice, as the man whom I have the happiness to call my friend. In an address from the British commissaries to congress, the first after _Johnstone_ was excluded, they speak in the most disrespectful terms of my nation and country. The whole is undersigned by them, and more particularly by the president, Lord Carlisle. I am the first French officer, in rank, of the American army; I am not unknown to the British, and if somebody must take notice of such expressions, that advantage does, I believe, belong to me. Don't you think, my dear general, that I should do well to write a letter ont he subject to Lord Carlisle, wherein I should notice his expressions conveyed in an unfriendly manner? I have mentioned something of this design to the Count d'Estaing, but wish entirely to fix my opinion by yours, which I instantly beg, as soon as you may find it convenient.