house, with respect to the poor, be kept up. Let no one go away hungry. If any of this kind of people should be in want of corn, supply their necessities, provided it does not encourage them in idleness.”

Nothing of importance, aside from the routine of plantation life, occurred at Mount Vernon after the summer of 1775, until 1781. At the former period, Lord Dunmore and his marauding followers, ascended the Potomac as far as Occoquan Falls, with the intention of making Mrs. Washington a prisoner, and desolating the estates of Gunston Hall and Mount Vernon. The Prince William militia gathered in large numbers to oppose him, and these, aided by a heavy storm, frustrated his lordship's designs, and he sailed down the river, after destroying some mills and other property.

Early in September, 1781, there was great commotion at Mount Vernon, greater than when, a few months before, small British armed vessels had come up the Potomac, plundering and destroying on every hand. One of these, on that occasion, had approached Mount Vernon with fire and sword, and Lund Washington had purchased the safety of the estate by giving the commander refreshments and supplies. For this the master of Mount Vernon rebuked him, saying, "It would have been a less painful circumstance to me to have heard that, in consequence of your non-compliance with their request, they had burned my house and laid my plantation in ruins.”

On the 9th of September, 1781, there was an arrival more startling to the dwellers upon the Mount Vernon estate than that of an armed enemy upon the neighboring waters. It was the unexpected arrival of the master himself. The allied French and American armies were then on their march toward

Virginia, to assist Lafayette and his compatriots in driving the invading Cornwallis from that state. Washington came from Baltimore late at night, attended only by Colonel Humphreys (one of his aides) and faithful Billy. They had left the Count de Rochambeau and the Marquis de Chastellux-one at Alexandria, and the other at Georgetown-to follow them in the morning. Very soon the whole household was astir, and the news flew quickly over the estate that the master had arrived. At early dawn the servants came from every cabin to greet him, and many looked sorrowfully upon a face so changed by the storms of successive campaigns, during more than six years that he had been absent.

None came earlier than Bishop, the venerable body-servant of the master in the old French war, who was now too old to go to the camp. He lived near the mansion, the Nestor of the plantations, and was overseer of one of the farms. No doubt he came, as was his custom on great occasions, fully equipped in his regimentals, made after the fashion of George the Second's time, to greet the man he so much loved. Bishop was then almost eighty years of age, with deep furrows upon his cheeks, a few gray locks upon his temples, and his once manly form bent gently by the weight of years, and shrunken by the suns of nearly fourscore summers.

On the morrow, the French noblemen, with their suites, arrived-Rochambeau first, and De Chastellux afterward-and all but the chief made it a day of rest. For him there was no repose. He was not permitted to pass even an hour alone with his wife. Public and private cares were pressing heavily upon him. He was on his way to measure strength with a powerful enemy, and his words of affection were few and hurried. All

the morning of the 10th he was closeted with his manager, and before dinner he wrote to Lafayette the first letter that he had dated at Mount Vernon since early in May, 1775, saying, "We are thus far on our way to you. The Count de Rochambeau has just arrived. General Chastellux will be here, and we propose, after resting to-morrow, to be at Fredericksburg on the night of the 12th. The 13th we shall reach New Castle; and, the next day, we expect to have the pleasure of seeing you at your encampment." These calculations were correct; they arrived at the camp of Lafayette, at Williamsburg, on the evening of the 14th.

Rochambeau and Chastellux were guests worthy of such a host. The former was of a noble Vendôme family. He was

of mediuin height, slender in form, and then fifty-six years of age. He had been aide-de-camp to the Duke of Orleans, fiveand-thirty years before, and had gained many laurels on the fields of battle, especially on that of Minden, which occurred a few months after Washington had taken his bride to Mount Vernon. A fine picture of that battle hung upon the walls at Mount Vernon for many years, and is now at Arlington House. Whether it was there to delight the eyes of Rochambeau on this occasion is a question that may not now be solved.

Rochambeau had come to America at the head of a large army, to assist the struggling colonists to cast off the British yoke. He came with the title of lieutenant-general, but, according to previous arrangement by the French court, he was to be second to Washington in command. He assisted nobly at the siege of Yorktown, where, little more than a month after this visit at Mount Vernon, Cornwallis and a large army surrendered to the allied forces. He returned to France, was made a field-marshal by the king, but was called to much suffering during the French Revolution. Bonaparte granted him a pension and the cross of grand officer of the legion of honor, in 1803. Four years afterward he died at the age of eighty-two.

De Chastellux was a much younger man than Rochambeau, heavier in person, very vivacious, fond of company, and exhibited all the elegances of manner of the older French nobility, to which class he belonged. He came to America with Rochambeau, but seems not to have been confined to the army, though bearing the title of major-general; for during the two years he was here, he travelled very extensively, and made notes and observations. These he printed on board the French

fleet-only twenty-four copies-for distribution among his friends; but a few years afterward they were translated and published in two volumes, by an English traveller.

De Chastellux was the life of every company into which he was introduced, while in this country, and he left a very pleasant impression at Mount Vernon. In the library there, where he was entertained in the autumn of 1781, Washington wrote to him a playful letter in the spring of 1787, after receiving from the marquis an account of his marriage to an accomplished lady, a relative of the Duke of Orleans. "I saw," wrote Washington, "by the eulogium you often made